Somayeh Abedinzadeh MPhil Thesis - University of St Andrews
Transcript of Somayeh Abedinzadeh MPhil Thesis - University of St Andrews
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF KANT AND NIETZSCHECONCERNING THE ROLE OF SCIENCE IN POLITICAL THEORY
Somayeh Abedinzadeh
A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of MPhilat the
University of St. Andrews
2010
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A Comparative study of Kant and Nietzsche
concerning the role of science
in political theory
Somayeh Abedinzadeh
Thesis submitted for the degree of MPhilSchool of International Relations University of St Andrews
2009-04-29
I, Somayeh Abedinzadeh, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 40,000 wordsin length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that ithas not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree.
I was admitted as a research student in September 2006 and as a candidate for the degree ofMPhil in September, 2008; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in theUniversity of St Andrews between 2006 and 2009.
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Abstract:
This thesis is concerned with the implications of natural science for moral
philosophy and political theory, from the view point of Kant and Nietzsche. In identifying
this association we argue that investigating the differences between these two
philosophers’ perspectives on natural science in relation to their moral philosophy offers
two distinct conceptions of the self, individual sovereignty and free will. This could
potentially help us establish a distinction between two different types of social structures
that they appear to advocate. The first model represents the Kantian ideal of a republican
society, while an alternative society may be characterised by Nietzsche’s Dionysian
notion of chaos. The main difference between these two types of societies stems from the
role of the individual in their structures, which in turn brings us back to the discussion of
moral philosophy and its correlation with our understanding of the natural world.
Thus, the thesis aims to point out the inevitability of considering the role of
science in the moral philosophies of Kant and Nietzsche, as they sought a revolutionary
outlook beyond organised religion and strove to empower human society to rise above
millennia of conflict. It transpires through these investigations that Kant’s transcendental
philosophy remains deeply rooted in metaphysics; while Nietzsche truly strived for a
naturalistic approach beyond all a priori metaphysical assumptions. Through this
comparison it is hoped to bring to light not only some of the profoundest differences
between Kant and Nietzsche in their natural, moral and political philosophy, but also to
contribute to a revival of the trend of natural philosophy that, arguably, declined in 20th
century. This objective is pursued through an interpretation of Nietzsche’s thoughts based
on a conception of knowledge outside the boundaries of traditional epistemology.
In addition, while we note that Kant and Nietzsche’s moral and political
philosophy are inherently rooted in their interpretation of natural science, to truly
appreciate their divergence one ought to take into account the distinction between
classical and non-classical science. The reason for this is that traditional epistemology is
generally grounded in a dualistic amalgamation of classical science and metaphysics,
while Nietzsche’s reading of science can be viewed with a non-classical outlook. Failure
to observe this point may lead to misinterpretation of Nietzsche in a metaphysical vein.
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It has to be noted that science, in its classical sense, signifies the study of the
clockwork nature of macroscopic phenomena. This trend, known as the “modern
scientific approach”, began in the 16th century with Galileo Galilei, was later reinforced
by Newton and Descartes, and influenced the views of many philosophers from Hobbes
and Hume to Kant. While its establishment greatly contributed to the expansion of
humanity's empirical knowledge of the natural world, the markedly “rationalistic” aspects
of this method gave way to the foundation of dualism. The reason for this is the
observation that classical science remains futile in dealing with many fundamental
questions of existence such as the nature of mental phenomena, the diversity and
complexity of the natural world and the behaviour of natural phenomena on the very
small scale. Those aspects of nature are what come under investigation in a non-classical
world-view, to which Nietzsche’s philosophy corresponds more closely. Ultimately, the
thesis argues that a Nietzschean outlook, as compared to Kant’s classical and
metaphysical world-view, may potentially offer a new image of the individual and their
place in the society and thereby transforming the dynamics of 21st century world politics
in the face of globalisation.
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Introduction 5
Chapter I – Kant 22
Kant and pure knowledge 24
Possibility of free will 26
Kant’s conception of natural law 30
Coexistence of natural law and freedom 37
Kant’s moral philosophy 39
Aesthetics as a means of cultivating moral feelings 49
Teleological understanding of existence 56
Kant’s political philosophy 59
Chapter II – Nietzsche 65
Evaluation and truth 69
Science vs. Metaphysics concerning “truth” 79
The will to power 98
A critique of morality 95
Nietzsche’s political philosophy 110
Conclusion 122
Bibliography 127
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Introduction:
The thesis addresses the impact of science on the moral philosophies of Kant and
Nietzsche, which, in turn, underlies their political thoughts. In dealing with this subject
the first chapter revisits the notion of knowledge based on a classical understanding of
science and metaphysics in Kant’s writings. This approach has been based upon the
contention that the classical conceptions of natural science, along with metaphysical
conjectures concerning the nature of reality, shape the foundations of Kant’s idealism. In
view of the above observation, the second chapter reflects Nietzsche’s enquiry regarding
the value of morality based on metaphysics and classical science. This investigation
contends that Nietzsche’s ideas, in relation to the question of science and its underpinning
role in moral philosophy, are indicative of his profound though naturalistic world-view
which he reflects in an artistic expression.
Thus, the theme of the thesis revolves around the correlation between three key
concepts: knowledge, moral judgement, and political thought, as reflected in the works of
Kant and Nietzsche. The reason for this composition is that political thought relies on
moral judgement for its justification, which is in turn shaped by humans’ knowledge of
themselves and others, and the conditions of existence. Hence, our present knowledge of
the world reflects millennia of observation and evaluation of natural phenomena and
interpretation of their social and philosophical implications.
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Alongside empirical knowledge, however, remain many unanswered questions
that philosophers and religious thinkers have often attempted to resolve from a
metaphysical standpoint. One may note that the greatest shortcoming of metaphysical
conjectures is the fact that, unlike scientific theories, they are not falsifiable. In spite of
this, metaphysics has for centuries played a key role as the foundation of moral
philosophy. However, in a new era of human scientific endeavour, the decline of
metaphysics as a reliable source of drawing moral judgement seems inevitable, to a
degree that the very conception of morality requires redefinition. To this end one may not
overlook the significance of scientific awareness in moral and political philosophy, as we
seek an alternative perspective in understanding the natural world in general, and the
status of humans and their relationship to that world in particular. The necessity of such
an undertaking becomes more tangible in light of a gap that has occurred between the
trends of political theory and natural science in the recent decades. One may, therefore,
contend that as the findings of modern science unfold and challenge many of our long
held metaphysical assumptions, natural science deserves to be given a new place in
political theory and in studying the dynamics of human relationship.
A retrospective view of the history of moral philosophy reveals that ever since
humans have found themselves in interaction with each other they have utilised moral
judgements to justify their actions. However, the principles and assumptions upon which
these moral judgements are based have not always been systematically examined. Rather,
the limits of humans’ knowledge of themselves and the conditions of existence resulted in
the formulation of moral laws based on inferences made from incomplete observations.
In studying the thoughts of two of the most important philosophers of the modern era, we
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hope to utilise their perspective in developing new means towards a more harmonious
global society. Both Kant and Nietzsche have looked into natural science at the most
fundamental level as they investigated the grounds of humans’ moral judgement. From
these investigations it transpires that modern political thought over the past few centuries
has been greatly influenced by a classical notion of science, indebted to Newtonian
physics, which has shaped our outlook on fundamental concepts such as the idea of the
sovereign self, and free will.
Nevertheless, findings of science, in the centuries and decades following the
Newtonian paradigm shift, have undergone transformations that would inevitably affect
our previous conceptions of the self, and free will. In light of the argument for a
correlation between science and philosophy, it seems imperative that one ought to be
prepared to reform and restructure one’s hypothetical interpretations as humans’
understanding of the natural world expands. However, openness to revision of one’s
beliefs and contentions with regards to the nature of reality has not always proven easy.
Thus thanks to the inadequacy of scientific and empirical knowledge, some of the most
influential thinkers of modern western philosophy, such as Kant, have taken a
metaphysical root in conjecturing responses to their unanswered existential enquiries.
This claim is revisited and expanded upon in the course of the thesis, whilst criticising
and exposing the foundations of moral judgement as amalgamation of empirical and
intuitive knowledge. Furthermore, while the thesis refutes the value of such conjectures,
it also warns against taking for granted the unreliability of classical science as a complete
view of the natural world; and points out the necessity of considering a non-classical and
perspectival world-view. This does not mean that the findings of science are not to be
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trusted but that they are increasingly complex and at times contradictory, hence the need
to broadening one’s view of its various aspects. An attempt has been made, therefore, to
offer an approach that while being based on scientific knowledge draws attention to the
rapidly evolving nature of science itself. Hence one notes the need for social science to
keep pace with paradigm shifts in the realm of natural science, if we hope to create more
harmonious social structures and avoid another era of human conflict.
Nevertheless one’s initial inclination may be to refute the relevance of science to
political theory, which perhaps accounts for lack of consensus among social scientists on
the consequences of science for political thought. However, there is certainly agreement
among social scientists on the significance of moral philosophy in understanding the
evolution of social structures. It is this realisation that invariably brings us back to the
position of science; since a link between political science and moral philosophy
transpires, in light of the observation that our knowledge of the natural world shapes our
moral judgement. Nevertheless difficulties arise from the fact that our world-view – our
mental model of reality – may not necessarily be an accurate representation of nature, and
this may lead to the establishment of erroneous criteria of moral judgement.
Consequently, it is important to refine and revisit one’s understanding of the natural
world, as we maintain an awareness of the association between moral philosophy and
political theory with scientific hypotheses regarding the nature of reality. The
interrelation between natural science and social science has been implicitly and explicitly
explored by philosophers and scientists of “both cultures” throughout centuries to a point
that, perhaps, the separation of science and philosophy would have seemed unreasonable.
Although this inclination displayed signs of regression in the past decades, a number of
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influential social thinkers have continued to point out the significance of the link between
the two spheres of human knowledge. For example, “the political status of science” is a
term that Foucault coins in an interview on truth and power, pointing out “the ideological
functions it could convey”1. Indeed there could be no better way of putting it as Foucault
does, in revealing how the entire notion can be summed up in two words: “knowledge”
and “power”. Foucault raises the question: if the relationship between science as in
physics and chemistry can be investigated in the field of psychiatry, which deals directly
with the human behaviour, why should posing the question in politics be so much of a
problem? Is it not true, after all, that political thought is also concerned with human
behaviour, both on the state level and with respect to the individual. The inherent
association of science with the formation of social structures in human history is
therefore a subject matter that cannot be forsaken when one tries to grasp the complicated
dynamics of international politics on a more theoretical level. Foucault notes that no
matter how some have tried to make it seem like “a problem without political importance
and without epistemological nobility”2, the question stares us in the face and is one that
needs to be investigated.
1 Michel Foucault. Power, Truth, Strategy, ed. Meaghan Morris and Paul Patto (Sydney Feral, 1979),p. 29
2 Ibid, p. 30
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In the first chapter we seek to shed light on Kant’s conception of the natural world
and the way in which it transpires through his moral and political philosophy. Kant is a
key figure in modern western philosophy, and the most suitable candidate for the purpose
of a thesis which aims to explore the relationship between modern science and political
theory. The main reasons for incorporating Kant’s philosophy in this study is his role in
laying the foundations of cosmopolitan ideals based on his transcendental philosophy.
Kant’s transcendental philosophy is in turn influenced by his natural philosophy and his
scientific understanding of the world based on the predominant paradigm of modern
science in his time, Newtonian physics.
In the vein of some other philosophers, such as Hobbes, Kant believed that man
was inclined to stray from moral principles. Therefore he supposed that humans had to be
bound by moral law and a sense of duty in order to co-exist peacefully. This notion of
morality, for Kant, was not enforced by higher powers or gods, and as such his
philosophy diverged from the doctrines of organised religions. However, this is not to say
that his ideas were not based on metaphysics. On the contrary: Kant hoped to revive
Metaphysics as an answer to that portion of humans’ enquiry into nature that could not be
answered by means of empirical investigation. He believed that moral feelings in humans
could be awakened by their observation of the physical world and through intellectual
appreciation of aesthetics in nature. Kant supposed that even the sense of drawing
aesthetic pleasure from the beauties of nature had to be developed from a sense of moral
“duty”. For Kant, “the beautiful” seemed intrinsically in accordance with “the good”;
thus to learn to appreciate the beauties of nature would contribute to the cultivation of
moral feelings in oneself.
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One may argue that although his transcendental philosophy was a further step
away from organised religion, Kant’s classical world-view sought to instigate peace in
human society in a mechanistic fashion. His mechanistic understanding of the world
inclined him to make a distinction between the subject and the object and the cause and
the effect, hence creating a gap in humans’ understanding of themselves as the “object” of
creation of an unintelligible transcendental being. It would seem that Kant assumed two
aspects to human life – the physical and the moral; whereby the former is intelligible to
us empirically, and the latter is permissible as a priori knowledge only. He therefore
notes in his Critique of Pure Reason that “we can know no objects, either within us or as
lying outside of us, except in so far as we insert in ourselves the actus of cognition
according to certain laws”3; yet he does not specify how we can gain knowledge of
ourselves. In critiquing this notion, Eckart Forster writes, in his book, Kant’s Final
Synthesis, “but what are these ‘certain laws’? Where do they come from, and how do I
come to know them? What kind of forces, what ‘actus of cognition,’ do we have to ‘insert
into ourselves’ – prior to any distinction between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ a distinction itself
dependent on these acts of cognition?”4 Forster notes that even Kant himself realises the
insufficiency of these separations of the inner and outer self and superficial
implementation of such concepts as freedom, duty, right, etc. Kant therefore uses the
concept of reason as theoretical and practical, to form and make possible the
interpretation of such notions as “god” and “the world”. This is where pure reason comes
into play, which in his last work, the Opus Postumum, he notes: it precedes understanding
3 Immanuel Kant. Critique of Pure Reason, (Cambridge University press, 1997) p. 255
4 Eckart Forster. Kant’s final synthesis, (Cambridge University Press, 1995) p. 161
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giving rise to the possibility of transcendental philosophy, “as a system, by which a
coherent whole could be established as rational knowledge for reason.”5 Nevertheless, the
concern of this thesis is Kant’s ultimate resolution of this predicament, which had
significance beyond the moral behaviour of the individuals. Rather it was a stepping
stone in introducing his idea of “perpetual peace” between nations, and his impression of
the cosmopolitan ideal, as he realised that “the people of the earth have...entered in
varying degrees into a universal community, and it has developed to the point where a
violation of laws in one part of the world is felt everywhere”6. Kant hoped for the
materialisation of such a state of global peace in a society operating on reason and
universal moral laws.
Notwithstanding his endeavour to establish the grounds of human morality and in
a quest to ensure the prevalence of a state of perpetual peace, Kant veiled his
dissatisfaction with man’s condition as part of the physical world. He recognised that
human life was subject to constant change, causing their displeasure, at any moment,
relative to an impending future that they would progress into. As such, it seemed that
human progression itself would impair their “true contentment”. Based on Kant’s
portrayal of change as a catalyst of human discontent, it would seem meaningless to
attempt to define a conception of human fulfilment and contentment in the face of this
intrinsic property their life. In spite of this observation, Kant was adamant in remarking
that to live one’s life in accordance with moral principles would lead to human fulfilment.
Consequently, one may note that the ambiguity in Kant’s world-view casts a shadow on
5 Ibid Kant. Critique of Pure Reason, p. 256
6 James Bohman and Mathias Lutz-Bachman. Perpetual Peace: Essays of Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal(Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, 1997) p. 25
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his moral philosophy. On the one hand he advocates the notion that living a moral life
leads to human fulfilment, while his view of the very concept of “fulfilment” remains
unclear. The reason why this is of great significance to understanding Kant’s political
thought is that his conception of “change” is the essence of his cosmopolitan ideal and his
notion of perpetual peace. Given his observation of humans’ subjection to a constant state
of change, Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal suggests the implementation of contractual
interrelation between nations, such that one’s status would have substantial bearing for
the other. In this manner, while with respect to the intrinsic condition of their lives,
human subjects continually undergo change with respect to one another, and they
maintain a kind of constancy. In so doing Kant hoped to assure a sustainable state of
order and peace among nations. However, in this picture Kant does not really leave room
for the role of individuals as building blocks of the nation states, among whom he seeks
to achieve an outwardly condition of peace. Thus the Kantian model despite being an
improvement over the previous modes of humans’ social structure is as yet far from
allowing for the realisation of the true extent of human potential.
In the second chapter we seek an alternative to Kant’s dualistic world-view
outlook, from a Nietzschean perspective. For once, rather than suggesting a new, ever
more refined moral system, Nietzsche posed the important question of the “value” of
morality in the first place. Nietzsche systematically embarked on exposing the
presumption of moral philosophy, and questioned why we need morality at all; its failure
in resolving the human conflict, after all, has been proven to us for centuries. He
recognised that no ideological systems, be it in the name of religion or philosophy, had
succeeded in creating an all encompassing moral system. He therefore concluded that
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there was no value in the concept of morality; other than as a set of rules for containment
of human behaviour. In confronting the traditional conception of morality, he realised that
an inquiry into the nature of the existence was inevitable. He therefore revisited the
fundamental questions of science and philosophy such as the notions of causality, and the
mind body relation, which in turn led to the question of God and human autonomy and
free will.
Indeed, one may contend that Nietzsche’s investigations led to unique hypotheses
that went far beyond the Kantian transcendental idealism. His distinctive ideas, however,
have at times been considered so indigestible that he has not found his deserved place in
the mainstream of political theory, whereas Kant seems to have obtained a steady position
as a political thinker whose thoughts seem more relevant to everyday politics. In fact for
some scholars the battle between the Kantian and the Nietzschean approach to politics is
more about the Nietzschean thinkers’ tradition of looking back to the ancient Greeks as
an alternative to the of “political life based on reason”. 7 However we hope to illustrate
that Nietzsche’s objections to Kant were more profound than a revival of the , which he
utilises more metaphorically.
Nietzsche, prior to all else, appealed to revaluation of moral values and the
presupposition of God that supposedly gave meaning to moral life. Yet, in the first
instance, one notes Nietzsche’s decisive rejection of God as creator, and his dismissal of
the traditional understanding of free will and morality. Nor does he entertain the notion of
human equality; while he also rejects the conventional wisdom of hierarchy that is
justified in the religious sense, linking itself to a higher power. Between hierarchy and
7 Ibid
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equality Nietzsche gives us a new picture, which celebrates the competition of unequal
forces; it leads to their finding common interests and joining to form a new, more
empowered body. His redefinition of the concept of inequality and hierarchy indicates
that one finds meaning as part of a whole – a key concept for Nietzsche with the ultimate
goal to become “power that no longer needs proving”. Of course, Nietzsche asserts the
will to power and the ongoing struggle of power quanta to be the driving force of all
being. Therefore the expression of “power that no longer needs proving” may seem
contradictory. Yet more careful observation of nature unfolds this perception as one
realises that natural systems, such as the bodies of living beings, are capable of acting in
harmony, despite the ongoing struggle between their internal elements that leads to the
prevalence of some over others. As such, this is the very essence of evolution of all
natural phenomena and may in fact lead us to the counter intuitive conclusion that there is
a value in conflict. An analogy may shed light on this, as we realise that even our brain
patterns are constantly in competition with each other, and consequently they lead to the
hardwiring of particular patterns that win over and over again. A simple illustration of an
optical illusion may help clarify this.
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When we view the below of image, known as the “duck-rabbit” optical illusion
the image sometimes presents itself as the image of a duck and sometimes as the image of
a rabbit.
Every time an observer glances at the image the neurons in their brain fire trying to
convince them of a different interpretation of the image as a duck or as a rabbit. When a
group of neurons win over the others, a different perception prevails in the observer’s
mind.
While this is a purposefully ambiguous design, it is an appropriate example of the
competition between the internal elements of the brain. In this fashion, akin to the rest of
nature, our senses have developed during millions of years of evolutionary processes.
This notion is significant to our comparison of the Kantian and the Nietzschean view of
moral judgement and their political philosophy based on their perception of science.
While the Kantian perpetual peace advocates the development of politics based on reason
and universal laws, his mechanistic understanding of nature does not take into account
the need for humans to follow their instinctive inclination towards competition and
struggle. Furthermore the observation of the fact that Kant would not have been aware of
the Darwinian theory of evolution through natural selection may partly explain his
insistence that the establishment of moral law through reason could induce a state of
peace in human affairs. To act from moral duty may sound plausible in principal but it
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does not account for the passions that drive human behaviour. A more careful observation
of nature reveals how incongruent the idea of moral duty based on reason is. For example
one does not observe in natural phenomena an internal system to suppress their inner
struggles. Such system, had it existed, would act akin to moral laws aiming to contain the
inner struggles. Indeed, the evolutionary image of existence would seem improbable in
this portrayal.
Nietzsche, however, realised this fundamental shortcoming of the Kantian
philosophy. For Nietzsche conflict and inequality of power quanta is an essential
condition of life’s evolution. He recognizes the profundity of this notion and celebrates its
implications while also realising the dangers of the concept of morality as a static system
of right and wrong. One may ask how could the destructive notion of conflict be
celebrated by Nietzsche. Indeed, at times, Nietzsche’s philosophy could seem to portray
contradictory conceptions. That is until one realises that the “togetherness of paradoxes”
and the notion of “chaos” are at the centre of Nietzschean philosophy. Despite the
seemingly paradoxical nature of his philosophy, however, there are no hidden meanings
in Nietzsche’s words. If his thoughts seem too complex, it is due to the degree of his
directness; to which we are foreign. Hence, as Tracy Strong notes, “Nietzsche is not, as so
many commentators have said, ‘obscure’; in fact, he generally means exactly what he
says. If we find him obscure or mystical, this says something about us, for it is not until
we are able to cast off the pictures that hold us prisoner to the traditional way of seeing
moral, political, social and epistemological problems that we will be able to face directly,
what Nietzsche says.”8 Not surprisingly, such assertion does appeal to the human mind,
8 Tracy B Strong Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration, (University of California Press1975) p.189
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seeing that we are hardened to follow a path to which we are directed by the conditions of
our lives rather than attempting to create new possibilities beyond the limitation that we
perceive. The suppleness and chaotic nature a Nietzschean perspectival world-view,
however, allows not only for the togetherness of paradoxes but for the prevalence new
forms of human expression and ingenuity.
Unlike Kant, Nietzsche does not stress the value of consistency, because he
realises the relative nature of all phenomena. This by no means indicates that there are no
principle grounds whatsoever on which we develop our observations and evaluations.
The very statement that all is “relative”, or that life is essentially “will to power”, is itself
a principle, and can be viewed as the consistency of Nietzsche’s thoughts. These are the
inherent conditions of human life; and the best we can do is to strive for the most
paramount choice at any given time. This calls for accepting the nature of existence as
being in a state of flux and probability and persevering in throwing dice in the direction
of creation and overcoming our limits ever more. No other philosopher has stressed
man’s aptitude for living a proactive and triumphant life as profoundly and with such
intense passion as Nietzsche has. Nietzsche is a true optimist and celebrates life, with all
its burdens and beauties. Of course, similar to Kant, Nietzsche also viewed human beings
as machine-like creatures; a notion that would be understandable in view of human
evolution as part of the bigger picture of evolution of animals and other living organisms
on earth. Yet these machine-humans are very different, and are much more complex: their
thoughts have evolved and given rise to unique capacities that are not shared by other
living phenomena. Humans do not always need an outside force to change the pace of
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their evolutionary motion, as their thoughts have evolved to give rise to a new,
independent property, which can give rise to stimuli from inside; the so called
intentionality. Hence Nietzsche’s assertion: “I learned to walk; since then have I let
myself run. I learned to fly; since then I do not need pushing in order to move from a
spot. Now am I light, now do I fly; now do I see myself under myself. Now there dances
a God in me.”9 The realisation of one’s capacity to stimulate one’s own growth and self
overcoming is what sets the Nietzschean overman apart from the animalistic man out of
which a Dionysian character is yet to evolve. A future society of what we may one day
describe as over-men or neo-humans will be indebted to Nietzsche for being an important
stepping stone in its development.
Methodology and sources:
It has to be noted that the thesis does not follow a standard methodology; rather it
is a text based analysis of the thoughts of Kant and Nietzsche in a comparative vein,
aiming to present a better understanding of the role of science in the formation of
knowledge. In so doing it sheds light on the way in which the two thinkers have utilised
art and/or metaphysics as a means to make up for the inadequacies of the scientific
approach based on the advancements of science during their life period. In a sense this
study displays a transitioning from the long held tradition of metaphysics to a conception
of morality free from metaphysical conjectures – a trend that Nietzsche strived for by
incorporating a novel approach with an artistic expression of nature beyond the classical
scope of reason.
9 Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, (Oxford University Press 2008) sec. Reading and Writing
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While Nietzsche’s method, ingeniously, refuted the value of metaphysics, it also
diminished dangers of the void that sudden rejection of the notion of God and traditional
morality could instigate. Once the difficult task that this great thinker took upon himself
is appreciated, it leaves the reader with a new insight, namely: although Nietzsche’s
approach was amazingly powerful and ground-breaking, we are now in a position to
begin to realise his dream of leaving metaphysics behind, while fully grasping the
implications of his poetic expression of existence and forming an appreciation of the
mathematical and scientific thinking behind them. With advancements in modern physics
and cosmology, much of what once belonged to the realm of metaphysics and
philosophical abstraction is increasingly becoming a rudimentary part of scientific
enquiries. Up until the beginning of 20th century, Nietzsche was the first philosopher to
cast doubts on the viability of metaphysics most decisively and critically. In so doing,
through the use of artistic and poetic expressions, he opened the possibility of considering
notions that were previously thought to belong to the realm of metaphysics. However
Nietzsche also criticises basing one’s world-view on the mechanistic conception of
science that prevailed with the expansion of Newtonian Physics. He realised the negative
effects of this trend on our conception of morality, since the inadequacy of classical
science in explaining all aspects of existence potentially made room for metaphysical
conjectures and ultimately for the concept of God. Yet, despite his clear rejection of all
things supernatural, since Nietzsche’s thoughts could not be understood within the sphere
of classical physics, some philosophers such as Heidegger, and to some extent Walter
Kaufmann, have felt inclined to regard him as a metaphysical thinker – a contention that
this thesis refutes.
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One may argue that Nietzsche’s thoughts were grounded in a more scientific view
of the world than they were understood to be. What is meant by the term scientific here is
the procedure through which knowledge is formed in the course of physical and thought
experiments, often accompanied by mathematical quantisation and abstraction, in an
attempt at modeling the natural world. Although the kind of scientific mindset that
appears to be aligned with Nietzsche’s ideas was not yet established in any meaningful
way during his lifetime, it is hard to overlook the resonance of his thoughts with certain
concepts that came to light in modern physics, mathematics and biology in the decades
following his death. In light of these observations, a number of citations from these fields
have been included in the research. Although as yet there is a need for more investigation
to shed light on the depth of this great thinker’s mind, as well as, grasping the profound
implications of modern physics and biology, the scientific and mathematical references in
this thesis have been limited to ideas on Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural
selection, and certain ideas in modern physics and mathematics.
Nevertheless, since this is a vast area, the priority has been given to differentiating
between classical notions of science based on Kant’s philosophy versus a Nietzschean
perspective. In analysing Nietzsche’s views, it is inevitable to investigate the thoughts of
Kant, whom he often criticises as a symbol of modern western philosophy. Although,
Kant himself is in turn indebted to other philosophers preceding him, such as Descartes,
Hobbes, Locke and Hume; due to limitations in length the primary focus here has been
given to Kant and Nietzsche. Also key secondary literature on both philosophers has been
cited from the works of Heidegger, Foucault, Deleuze, Paul Guyer, Walter Kaufmann,
Jacques Derrida and other scholars.
22
Chapter I - Kant
Kant’s inclination to reason and his logical command was second to none, which
perhaps explains the strong synthesis of natural and social science in his philosophy. Yet
his faith in the metaphysical concept of a higher power and the indisputable inadequacy
of science, in giving a profound and convincing account of the nature of life placed him
in a position to seek a solution to this paradigm. Kant was convinced of the certainty of
modern physics, in what he observed in the works of such thinkers as Newton, Leibniz,
and Galilei, and he saw himself faced with the question of human autonomy, as the
necessary condition of moral law. He embarked on a long journey dedicating most of his
life to explaining how, as humans, we could be free if we were merely machine like
figures that modern science seemed to describe.
This was a dilemma that Kant tried to solve with a transcendental metaphysical
approach that brought together the empirical and the a priori knowledge. As A. C. Ewing
puts it, Kant “claimed to have proven all the a priori principles, which are essential to
science by showing that they are involved in the conditions of all our ‘experiences’ or
empirical knowledge, and it was this reference to the empirical which enabled them to
give new knowledge (i.e. be ‘synthetic’ principles, as he called it)”. Ewing points out that
“for Kant all judgements giving new knowledge must involve an empirical element; but
this is only half the truth, for his proof of the categories showed him likewise that they
must involve an a priori element also”.10
10 A. C. Ewing “The Message of Kant” Journal of Philosophical Studies, Cambridge University Press, Vol.6, No. 21 (Jan., 1931) pp. 43-55
23
Before moving on to explaining how Kant arrived at the conclusions that he did,
throughout his philosophical enquires, one has to note Kant’s position in a historical
context. Kant’s philosophy was in part a response to traditional metaphysics and the
German enlightenment era. In that sense his approach was not unique in terms of the
critique. Hume, Lock and Descartes had also criticised the traditional metaphysics. Kant,
however, rejected the notions of scepticism and empiricism, since he saw them as
endangering reason itself. Instead he went on to establish a mechanistic understanding of
nature, a notion that also accounted for its seemingly unintelligible aspect that
transcended the human experience, in order to leave room for freedom and the possibility
of a moral life. In a combination of metaphysical and a mechanistic understanding of
“natural science”, Kant’s philosophy sought reassurance in the presupposed principles of
nature that could not be explained in the classical science of his time. Thus his
philosophy left little room for the possibility of further scientific discoveries, many of
which came about in the following decades. Paul Guyer and Allan Wood, also explain in
their introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason that “Kant’s bold attempt to resolve with
one stroke two of the most pressing problems of modern philosophy has seldom been
accepted by his successors without qualification. Some feel that Kant’s identification of
the basic principles of science with the fundamental principle of human understanding
itself betrays too much confidence in the specifically Newtonian mechanistic physics that
prevailed at his time, leaving too little room for subsequent scientific developments, such
as the theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics.”11 This essential shortcoming
in Kant’s philosophy is further explored in his theory of knowledge.
11 Paul Guyer, and Allan Wood, Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, (Cambridge University Press1998) p. 22.
24
Kant and pure knowledge
Kant embarked upon his unique critique by first setting metaphysics on a “firm
foundation”. Kant’s concern in maintaining conviction in metaphysics was the
significance of establishing a priori knowledge to serve moral judgement. The way he
characterised the a priori concept was as “universal cognitions, which at the same time
have the character of inner necessity, (and) must be clear and certain for themselves,
independently of experience.” He opposed this to aposteriori knowledge that is
“borrowed” from experience and cognized empirically. He even believed the empirical
knowledge to partly derive from the a priori knowledge. Therefore, perhaps one could
not exaggerate Kant’s trust in the validity of a priori knowledge in the absence of human
experience and observation. For him Mathematics was a “splendid example of how far
we can go with a priori knowledge independently of experience.”12 The significance of
this notion becomes tangible when one investigates his conception of cause and effect in
explaining the difference between analytic and synthetic judgement.
Kant notes that the relation between subject and object is possible in two different
ways. “Either the predicate B belongs to the subject A; or B lies entirely outside the
concept A, though to be sure it stands in connection with it.” The first case he calls the
Analytic judgements and the second Synthetic. Kant’s ultimate point in differentiating
between kinds of cognition is so that he can lead the discussion to “scientifically” prove
certain metaphysical notions in the realm of pure reason. For Kant “these unavoidable
12 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, (Cambridge University press 1997) p. 129
25
problems of pure reason itself are God, freedom, and immortality”13. Now the way in
which he reaches this conclusion is in his quest to explain the kind of cognition that is
based purely on a priori knowledge, i.e. as that which is not mixed with anything foreign
in it. Although he realises that we are not yet in a position to prove “a system of pure
reason”, he suggests a science of “mere estimation” of pure reason, its sources and
boundaries, not to be a doctrine but a critique of pure reason. The value of such a system
is in purifying our reason and prohibiting the occurrence of errors. He refers to cognitions
as transcendental because they are occupied with our a priori conception of objects. Kant
is certain of the reliability of his transcendental philosophy, which he believes to be a
scientific idea, and “for which the critique of pure reason is to outline the entire plan
architectonically.”14 This is an abstract “speculative” realm of pure reason that does not
include Kant’s “supreme principle of morality”. Although its fundamental concepts are a
priori cognition, its origins are in empirical knowledge of pleasure, pain, desires and
inclinations. He seeks the cognition of pure reason in the unknown sphere of sensibility
and understanding.
For Kant the a priori analysis led to metaphysical speculations and assumptions.
However such distinction also inclined him to critique the extension of those speculations
to understanding the noumenal realm, while in fact he believed them to be capable
merely of explaining phenomena as they appear. Hence he was inclined to conclude that
the nature of the existing universe was as a mechanistic phenomenon, and explaining the
subjectivity of human experience with the notion of the transcendental. In other words for
13 Kant. Critique of Pure Reason, (Cambridge University press 1997) p. 139
14 Ibid
26
Kant the human experience does not represent the things in themselves but is a mere re-
presentation of the real thing. In this fashion he separates the cause and effect as distinct
phenomena and notes “the constant form of receptivity that we call sensibility, as a
necessary condition of all the relations within which objects can be intuited as outside of
us, and if one abstracts from these objects, it is a pure intuition which bears the name of
space. Since we cannot make the special conditions of sensibility into conditions of
possibility of things, but only of their appearances, we can well say that space
comprehends all things that may appear to us externally.”15 What Kant, here refers to as
intuition is an empirical knowledge that allows us to grasp the causal laws of nature and,
as we will find out in the next section, he uses the same knowledge as a means to explain
the possibility of freedom. In other words he does not really solve the question of why
there seems to be causal relations in the phenomenal realm. He suggests instead that we
should accept it a priori as a condition of the possibility of experience, just as we should
accept the possibility of freedom a priori.
Possibility of free will
Following his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant attempted to shed light on the
possibility of human autonomy and freedom as the necessary ground of his supreme
principle of morality. As we will see further, it was essential for him to explicate the
grounds of human knowledge prior to refocusing on the issue of free will. As above said,
he considered freedom to be a concept “known” to us a priori, as its nature is such that it
15 Ibid. Kant p. 160
27
occurs to us with cognition. Paul Guyer notes in his book, Kant and the Experience of
Freedom, that for Kant, “purely rational cognition of the practical laws of freedom
implies the actual existence of free will.”16 Kant held that freedom had to be a pre-
condition to moral law, even though we cannot explain it.
Furthermore the idea of God and immortality were other presuppositions of
humans’ moral life, for Kant, that one may not ignore. He laid the grounds of some of the
most fundamental notions in his philosophy, on these presuppositions, hence to
understand his defence of human autonomy one has to consider his view of such
fundamentals, and the way in which these notions rely on one’s interpretation of
knowledge for their legitimacy. This is imperative as with the knowledge of free will
comes responsibility and a sense of duty. Kant explains, in the Critique of Practical
Reason, how (the knowledge of) the idea of moral law, human autonomy and God are
interrelated in that a need for pure practical reason “is based on a duty to make something
(the highest good) the object of my will so as to promote it with all my strength. In doing
so, I must presuppose its possibility and also its condition, which are God, freedom, and
immortality; for these conditions I am not in a position to prove by my speculative
reason, though I cannot disprove them either.”17 In fact, one may hold that Kant’s thesis
in “proving” the concept of freedom, stipulating morality, stemmed from an essentially
religious attitude. He viewed the nature of existence with a demand for a morally
determined will which justified the notion of God itself. Thus for Kant it was not the
presumption God’s existence which necessitated morality; conversely, he saw the
16 Paul Guyer, Kant and the experience of freedom, Cambridge University Press 1996 P. 29
17 Immanuel Kant. Critique of Practical Reason, The liberal arts press, New York, 1958 P.149
28
presence of moral feelings in humans as authentication of God. One could argue his
approach to understanding the existential position of humans was perhaps comparable to
the reaction to Darwin by Victorians; or that of the Vatican to Galileo. He did not wish
humanity to be displaced by science, so he presumed a priori knowledge that would
account for the possibility of freedom and the existence of God at the same time “the
possibility of which, can and must be assumed in this practical context without our
knowing or understanding them in a theoretical sense”.
Although, for Kant the idea of God did not dictate human morality, he did think
that without God moral law would not justify human fulfilment. As such he attempted to
bring together the practicality of moral judgement with the necessity of the notion of God
“to serve their practical function” in so far as they did not contain “any internal
impossibility (contradiction).”18
However, this very statement is a contradiction in terms. While, recognising that
the notions of higher power and immortality are preconditions fabricated in one’s own
mind, Kant expects them to “serve” a purpose to moral law. Indeed Kant realises the
danger of his presuppositions being proven wrong, thus he writes: “Nothing worse could
happen to all these labours, however, than that someone should make the unexpected
discovery that there is and can be no a priori knowledge at all”. Nevertheless he persists
that “but there is no danger of this. It would be like proving by reason that there is no
such thing as reason.”19 To Kant this metaphysical a priori was essential in dealing with a
potential problem that could surface thanks to his separation of the natural law and the
18 Immanuel Kant. Critique of Practical Reason, The liberal arts press, (New York, 1958) P. 4
19 Ibid P.12
29
practical law. While he attributed freedom to the realm of noumena, natural law for him
was related to the realm of phenomena and was therefore a “deterministic” concept. Kant
resorted to solve this problem through metaphysics: in this model he suggested that
freedom in the noumenal realm was a complete force in itself and, as Guyer notes,
freedom could control the “relevant events in the phenomenal realm”20. Having pointed
out the control of freedom over causation, Kant then suggested that, while the nature of
physical phenomena was one of causation, “if need be, the entire history of the
phenomenal realm could be taken to reflect the free choice of a rational agent in the
noumenal realm”21. Yet the way he justified this was that the free will of the original
agent did not interfere with the causal relationship between phenomena and at the same
time “within” the phenomenal realm the agents also have their own free will.
In this fashion Kant assumed that he had already elucidated the mechanistic
disposition of the world of phenomena and their separable nature. He assumed that this
was a quandary in the way of his moral philosophy based on the a priori presumption of
free will, because as he points out in Critique of judgement “the concept of freedom
determines nothing in respect of the theoretical cognition of nature; and the concept of
nature likewise (determined) nothing in respect of the practical laws of freedom.”22 The
way Paul Guyer sees it the gulf that needed to be bridged was not “between noumenal
and phenomenal causality but between feeling and freedom – that is between the arbitrary
realm of sensation and the law governed autonomy of reason.”23
20 Paul Guyer, Kant and the experience of freedom,( Cambridge University Press 1996), P. 30
21 Ibid
22 Kant, Critique of judgement p. 37 S 197
23 Paul Guyer, Kant and the experience of freedom, (Cambridge University Press 1996), p 33
30
It seems as if Kant is telling us that we as physical phenomena are created by the
will of an outside agent, and that the experience of free will that we sense with our
intuition (as an a priori knowledge) is designated to us by the will of that rational agent.
This however does not affect the causal relationship that is also an a priori knowledge
and needs no explaining. In other words the causal law of nature itself is a result of the
free will of an agent. Having “resolved” the problem of causality and human autonomy
Kant then emphasises that we must not doubt the autonomy of this free will. But this
statement seems problematic to Kant’s idea of freedom which requires a kind of free will
in humans that is not causally determined. In order to solve this problem, P R Frierson,
suggests in his account of Kant’s anthropology that he distinguishes “between the
empirical will, which can be affected by empirical influences, and the free will, which
cannot. The connection between these is such that the empirical will is morally relevant
as the expression of the moral status of the free will.”24
Kant’s defence of the notion of a free will, which could be both causally
determined and free, in order to be subject to moral law, was not entirely new, although it
offered an intricate perception that separated it from the previous explanations in light of
the division between hard and soft determinism. While it could be argued that Kant’s
position was closest to soft determinism, he took his conception to a new level by
introducing the idea of “transcendental freedom”. Thus he appropriates his reconciliation
of freedom and natural determination differently. Frierson notes that whereas for soft
determinists “freedom is just a proximate but predetermined cause of an action – Kant
24 Patrick Frierson. Freedom and anthropology in Kant’s Moral Philosophy Cambridge University Press2003 P.8
31
insists that the fundamental level of explanation is freedom. Natural causes just express
that freedom.”25 Kant specifically emphasises in his Critique of Pure Reason that,
without the assumption of freedom, “a human being would be a marionette or an
automaton...built and wound up by the supreme artist...the consciousness of his own
spontaneity...would be mere delusion.”26 On that note we are in a position to seek further
clarification into the possibility of freedom despite the determined nature of existence, as
Kant sees it, and the way in which he uses metaphysics to fill in the gaps of his classical
perspective in regards to the notion of causality, and the mind body separation and the
nature of change.
25 Ibid P 24
26 Kant Critique of Practical reason
32
Kant’s conception of natural law
What we mean here by natural law is a classical conception of science. Kant
sought to shed light on principle laws of nature through an epistemological interpretation
of such notions as causality and the dual nature of mind and body. These issues although
seen as the domain of classical physics had occupied the minds of many philosophers
preceding him; the understanding of which seemed necessary to grasp the nature of
human relationship and human beings as “things in themselves”. It goes without saying
that Kant’s real interest in causality and the mind body relation was so that it served one
purpose; setting the grounds for moral law. Although Kant was not alone this contention;
Hume for instance tried in his Treatise of Human Nature to introduce the experimental
method of reasoning into moral subjects. Kant was of course influenced by Hume, whose
views he took into account in developing his own account of causality, hoping to address
what he saw as the shortcomings of Hume’s philosophy.
Hume’s take on causality is somewhat different from Kant, in how it is to be
justified and utilised. For Hume “the same cause always produces the same effect and the
same effect never arises but from the same cause. This principle, we derive from
experience, and is the source of most of our philosophical reasoning. For when by any
clear experiment we have discovered the causes or effects of any phenomenon, we
immediately extend our observation to every phenomenon of the same kind, without
waiting for that constant repetition, from which the first idea of this relation is derived.”27
Yet, despite his efforts, as Ducasse writes, in his Critique of Hume's Conception of
27 David Hume, A treatise of human nature B1.3.15
33
Causality, he “appears to be aware in the end that he has not succeeded in providing a
tenable analysis of the causality relation”. As an evidence of this Ducasse mentions
Hume’s assertion in his Enquiry Concerning Human Nature that “it is impossible to give
any just definition of cause except what is drawn from something extraneous and foreign
to it.”28 Duncan Forbes sees this incongruency in Hume’s experimental approach to
human nature to actually mean that “its object is to discover God’s purpose for man by
examining the several powers or faculties of human nature as constituting a ‘system’, that
is a hierarchy, or microcosm.”29 This pictures all beings in a deterministic fashion where
what we do is discover the “true nature” of the “divine faculty” that is behind it. As such
there is a similarity between Kant and Hume in that they both see the mechanistic nature
of the world as an effect that is indicative of a final cause. Nevertheless this idea of the
final cause could potentially clash with human autonomy weakening the foundations of
morality. In dealing with this quandary Kant and Hume took different roots, although
Kant's ideas were largely a response to Hume's.
Hume is, in fact, uncertain about the necessity of causal relations as a universal
law and is sceptical as to what extent this affects (or that we should allow it to affect) the
moral law. This of course did not undermine his belief in the final cause. Hume simply
accepted that the answer to that question is one that cannot be known. However for him
the issue of the final cause did not have to be one that influenced the realm of morality, a
notion that would not have required provisions of a transcendental freedom. He
recognised that human experience alone must suffice the discovery of moral justification.
28 C. J. Ducasse “Critique of Hume's Conception of Causality”The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 63, No. 6.(Mar. 17, 1966) pp. 141-148.
29 Duncan Forbes Hume’s Philosophical Politics Cambridge University Press 1975 P 45
34
Forbes, for instance, differentiates between Hume’s approach and those of other
Newtonian thinkers. He explains “Hume’s object was to give morals a sure basis in
experimental philosophy, that is, a ‘science of man’ based on experience and observation.
This in itself was not a ‘new scene of thought”. Forbes explains that “what was really and
radically new, apart from the attempt to apply the principle of association consistently,
was what set Hume apart from the Newtonian: the discovery that a genuine experimental
philosophy ruled out (the need for) final causes and involved a conscious separation or
bracketing off of the natural from the super-natural.”30 Hume therefore ignored the
question of why; he instead concerned himself with the question of how, as he chose to
describe “how it happens that we as humans beings whose minds are said to encounter
nothing but the mental, come to believe that there is an external, non-mental world.”31
This matter of fact realisation of the external world of phenomena, for him, was enough
to ground his ideas of morality on the empirical knowledge alone.
Kant however, as we have already noted, is dedicated to founding his moral
philosophy on “reason”. His recognition of reason as an order of metaphysical and
empirical a priori leads him to see a serious flaw in Hume’s disregard of metaphysics. G
Brittan, in his book on Kant’s Theory of Science notes that Kant took Hume’s challenge
“to be a challenge not to physics but to metaphysics”32. He was concerned with what may
be understood, perhaps, as naturalisation of metaphysics, and hoped that it would to be
taken seriously as a science. He saw an immense gap in natural science in explaining the
30 Ibid 59
31 David Hume, A treatise of Human Nature, ed. David Fate Norton, and Mary J. Norton. (OxfordUniversity Press 2000) p. 117
32 G. G. Brittan Kant’s theory of Science, page 119
35
properties of nature, and the notion of causality was an area where he felt this gap
gravely. Kant did not agree with Hume that “the principle of causality...is derived from
experience. Since, third premise, metaphysical principles are 'by definition,' a priori, it
follows that there are no metaphysical principles.” Kant’s response to this argument as
Brittan puts it, “is of course, to deny the second premise.” To him “it does not follow
from the fact that a proposition is synthetic that it is a posteriori. There is another
possibility: a proposition might be both synthetic and a priory.”33
One notes Kant’s dedication to maintaining an entirely realistic view in his
account of the laws of physics. As opposed to Hume who acknowledges those laws but
goes on to formulate his ideas regardless, Kant acknowledges and sees the shortcomings
of the scientific explanations of the natural laws which he atones for, through his
metaphysical transcendental idealism. This is a view that he strongly separates from
idealism and believes it to be the only notion that would leave room for empirical
realism34. However, the problem lies in the fact that, as it will transpire, his trust in the
notion of the transcendental is an insufficient justification for empirical realism and is
inevitably based on metaphysical conjectures. It is these assumptions that he tries to shed
light on in his Metaphysical Foundation of Natural Science. In that sense, the way in
which Kant separates the metaphysical and empirical science becomes clear as he reveals
that this separation is fundamental in nature and he attempts to present the idea of
metaphysics as a science as a natural conclusion. He notes, “Every doctrine that is
supposed to be a system, that is, a whole of cognition ordered according to principles
33 Ibid p. 120
34 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A 371.
36
may be either principles of empirical or rational connection of cognitions in to a whole,
the natural science, be it the doctrine of body or the doctrine of the soul, would have to be
divided into historical or rational natural science...”35 Recognising that empirical laws
are insufficient in explaining all the properties of nature, he calls for such explanations to
be presupposed, hence bearing the name metaphysics.
Metaphysical contentions could be general in that they are valid even without
reference to any particular object, in which case they are the “transcendental part of the
metaphysics of nature”; or they could be specific in that they deal with those aspects of a
particular being, which empirical conceptions fail to account for, such as the cognition of
a “thinking being”.
It has to be noted that while Kant’s ideas are based on classical (Newtonian) laws
of physics and these laws have since undergone evolution and modification through
Einstein’s general relativity and later with the introduction of quantum physics.
Furthermore the point in mentioning Kant’s theory of science in this thesis was not
simply to critique his conception of the laws of nature, but to illustrate that where he fails
to present his hypotheses in terms of empirical observation, he refers to metaphysical
presuppositions. This approach has bearings on moral philosophy, which also affects
political theory. Yet Kant persistently seeks to establish the possibility of freedom
notwithstanding the limitations of natural law.
35 Kant, Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, (Cambridge University Press 2004), Preface
37
Coexistence of natural law and freedom
We noted that the nature of being for Kant becomes explicable through a
combination of natural law and metaphysics. This however makes it hard to justify
human autonomy, which is where the notion of transcendental freedom comes into play
to make such a rationalization possible. This is the problem of asymmetry between
freedom and nature that was earlier mentioned and it is imperative to understanding the
basis of Kant’s supreme principle of morality; hence his call for taking the influence of
empirical world out of the equation since it is a principle.
Had he not earlier established this, he would not be able to claim later that moral
universal laws could apply everywhere regardless of time and space. Yet Kant is also
aware of the problems that claims to universality could cause to moral laws that are
inherently empirical. In fact he even notes that our very understanding of ourselves is
empirical, and we have no way of gaining knowledge of ourselves as the thing in itself.36
He therefore resorts to the notion of comparative universality that allows for the
possibility of “extensive applicability”. However there is a contradiction even in his
choice of words when he notes in the first Critique that “as far as we have yet perceived,
there is no exception to this rule”, while two lines further he asserts that “thus is a
judgement thought in strict universality, i.e., in such a way that no exception at all is
allowed to be possible, then it is not derived from experience, rather is a valid universal a
priori.”37
36 Kant’s Critique of pure reason (Cambridge University press 1997), B156
37 Ibid B4
38
The resolution that Kant offers to this apparent problem seems unconvincing.
Kant later tries to address this in his anthropological reflections, noting the “limits to the
depth of self-observation” and restrictions caused by “conditions of time and place”. He
sees this is as a riddle caused by a “difficulty inherent in human nature itself” as he notes
“we are internally affected by ourselves i.e. as far as inner intuition is concerned, we
cognize our own subject only as appearance but not in accordance with what is in
itself.”38 The challenge was to figure out a system of morality that could be both
universal and empirical, in spite of limitations to the depth of self-observation and the
conditions of time and space. Yet anthropology is invariably the observation of the self
and the others. Given the difficulties raised by this empirical knowledge of the self and
others, Kant uses the term “pragmatic” in describing his “anthropology”. This raises the
doubt as to whether Kant himself held a deeper disbelief in the possibility of establishing
a universal moral law. Even though he distinguishes between the moral and the
pragmatic, Kant does not clearify whether for him the pragmatic choice is indeed a moral
choice. In this manner Kant had supposedly given a scientific proof for human autonomy
and reconciled it with the causal law of nature he was however also aware that this
knowledge alone could not account for the implementation of moral law in human
society. Freedom of will is known to follow responsibly, which is the essence of moral
judgement, yet this realisation alone does not lead to a state of order in the society. Thus
we note that, with regards to the question of morality, one has to first establish a moral
code. Secondly one has to address the implementation of the moral laws. In the following
section we investigate Kant’s attempt to establishing a universal moral code.
38 Ibid Frierson Chapter 2 Section 4
39
Kant’s moral philosophy
Having discussed the conceptions of freedom, natural law, and metaphysics for
Kant, we are now in a position to bring these conceptions together in discussing the
Kantian criteria for determining the moral law: the so called “supreme principle of
morality”. For Kant, as Samuel Kerstein puts it, “the supreme principle of morality would
not only be the basis for appraising an action’s moral requiredness, or permissibility, but
also its moral goodness (GMS 390). Whether an action is morally good depends on how
it relates to this principle. In particular, to be morally good an action must both conform
with and be done ‘for the sake of’ the principle. Finally, as the supreme norm for the
moral assessment of action, the supreme principle of morality would be such that all
genuine duties would ultimately be derived from it. (GMS 421). The supreme principle
would justify these duties as such”39.
For Kant “the supreme principle of morality would have extremely wide scope:
one that extended not only to all rational human beings but to any other rational beings
who might exist – for example, God, angels, and intelligent extraterrestrial. In Kant’s
view, the supreme principle of morality would have to possess “wide universal validity”.
It would have to be binding on all rational agents, at all times and in all places.” 40
39 Kerstain Samuel J Kant’s search for the supreme Principle of Morality, (Cambridge, 2002) P. 2
40 Ibid
40
Kant’s supreme principle of morality is in fact his assumption, which he presents
in Groundwork I and II. He attempts to determine what this principle would be, assuming
there were such a principle. As such, Kant seems to suggest that the supreme principal of
morality, and his notion of the Categorical Imperative, which he mentions for the first
time in Groundwork II, has an independent reality of its own that humans must attempt to
discover. “[A]ct only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it
becomes a universal law.” Kerstain notes that “the formula of universal laws is not the
only principle Kant advocates. Among the others we find the formula of Humanity, a
principle that many consider to be the most attractive Kantian candidate for the supreme
principle of morality.” In Kerstain’s view, “there are two key steps in this derivation,
which Kant undertakes in Groundwork II. First, Kant claims that if there is a supreme
principle of morality (and thus a categorical imperative), then there is an objective end:
something that is unconditionally good.”41 It appears that Kant’s perseverance in
establishing a supreme principal of morality essentially stems from a natural tendency to
stability and certainty that may guarantee human fulfilment.
Thus for Kant the supreme principal of morality must inevitably lead to human
fulfilment which speaks of his ultimate faith in the rationality of existence, which led him
to believe in the possibility of transcendental a priori knowledge. As regards to how Kant
defends this notion of the supreme principle of morality, we note that he had previously
established a metaphysical conception of synthetic a priori knowledge. He had also
justified the notion of freedom within a dual concept of man’s nature as both a member of
the noumenal, and phenomenal world. As Paton notes in this regards, for Kant “Man can
41 Ibid P.4
41
and indeed must, consider himself to be free as a member of the intelligible world and
determined as a part of the sensible world; nor is there any contradiction in supposing
that as an appearance in the sensible world he is subject to laws which do not apply to
him as a thing in itself. Thus man does not consider himself responsible for his desire and
inclinations, but he does consider himself responsible for indulging them to the detriment
of moral law.”42 The fact that he never manages to clarify how our knowledge of, our
lack of knowledge of, “the intelligible world” can free us both negatively - since it frees
us from determination, and positively - since it allows us to act freely, seems to go
unnoticed by Kant himself. It is indeed not sufficient ground for the claim of free will to
simply assert that we belong to two different realms of sensible and intelligible world,
knowing that we have no understanding of the latter. Yet with this presumption in mind
Kant moves on to elucidate his reflections on morality.
In his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant sets on firstly to clarify
how humans as autonomous beings have moral obligations and duties. In so doing he
starts from a common cognition, and a presupposition based on common sense that points
out the worth (or the value) in what is considered to be morally good. For Kant, that there
must be a pure moral philosophy that “for once” we need to “work out”, is of no doubt;
he says “a philosophy”, which is “clear of itself from the common idea of duty and moral
law”43. The interesting concept that he notes in this section of the Groundwork is that the
ground of obligation “must not be sought in the nature of human being or in the
circumstances of the world in which he is placed, but a priori simply in concepts of pure
42 H.C. Paton. The Moral Law, (Hutchinson1972), p 47
43 Ibid. Kant. Groundwork, 4:389
42
reason.”44 By introducing this notion it seems that Kant is placing the “pure moral law”,
completely out of “empirical grounds”, and hence in the domain of the intelligible world.
He therefore sees the principles based on experience, even if they are “universal” as
merely “a practical rule”, but never moral law.
Thus while elsewhere Kant has “establishes” the grounds for human freedom, he
contradicts himself and leaves next to no room for human autonomy and human
experience when it comes to explaining why human beings have moral obligations at all.
It is in his strong resistance against the notion of change and his insistence on the
mechanistic nature of existence that Kant establishes the supreme principle of morality,
“which constitutes by itself a business that in its purpose is complete” demanding to be
“kept apart from every other moral investigation”45 – in other words not to be doubted.
This, of course, is not a surprise, taking into account the way in which Kant sees it
necessary for human agents to conform to universal ends as a means of controlling the
society. It goes back to his mistrust for man and the way in which he believes the nature
of man as fundamentally needing to be tamed. One may wonder what the purpose is for
the earlier argument of free will and of reason; if the good will is, indeed, a concept that’s
outside of us.
Kant points out that “since reason is nevertheless given to us as a practical faculty,
that is, as one that is to influence the will; then, when nature has everywhere else gone to
work purposively in distributing its capacities, the true vocation of reason must be to
produce a will that is good, not perhaps as a means to other purposes but good in itself,
44 Ibid
45 Ibid. Kant. Groundwork, 4:392
43
for which reason was absolutely necessary.”46 By this means Kant separates the doer and
the deed and suggests that each is “the thing in itself”, a notion that as will be discussed
in the next chapter is attacked by Nietzsche. This concept of the thing in itself then allows
Kant to go on to argue that merely doing what conforms with moral law is not enough, if
it is done for a self-seeking purpose, but that it has to be done for purely moral reasons to
meet the complete criteria of moral duty. But we first need to discover the moral
principles.
Kant’s take on moral concepts traces them into the principles that have caused
their formation. However, this is a different approach than genealogy, as was followed by
Nietzsche. One may observe that a key difference between Kant and Nietzsche’s
approach to morality lies in their explanation of principles versus origins. While
Nietzsche investigates how we come to adopt certain moral concepts as a result of our
biological, physiological and social conditions, Kant assumes that if moral concepts are
there it must be indicative of some underlying pre-existing principles. As such Kant does
not question the value of morality, rather he builds upon the pre-established assumption
that morality has, indeed, a value and that this is in itself indicative of a transcendental
reality. In that sense his approach is predominantly metaphysical, and he believes that one
must discover and recognise the moral principles and act upon them from a sense of duty
alone. It is the sense of duty for Kant that gives value to a moral act and not the mere
adherence to moral law in practice.
46 Ibid Kant Groundwork 4:397
44
Kant’s concern in cultivating a sense of duty in humans is that they keep on
conducting the moral deed even in the absence of motives such as punishment and
reward. However, his general sense of distrust in man’s nature as being prone to straying
from the moral principles inclines him to discuss why one should cultivate moral feelings
in oneself. The point here is that there is a clash between knowing the moral principles
and submitting to them. Kant does not question the moral principles themselves, because
he simply assumes their values regardless of the position of humans. The problem is in
human beings and their free will that allows them to derivate from those laws if they
choose to. He points out in the Groundwork that “everything in nature works in
accordance with laws. Only the rational being has the capacity to act in accordance with
the representation of laws, that is, in accordance with principles, or has a will, since
reason is required for the derivation of actions from laws, the will is nothing other than
practical reason.”47He suggests that we must use this for will itself to consciously subject
ourselves to “commands of reason” which he refers to as imperatives. For him “all
imperatives are expressed by an ought and indicate by this the relation of an objective
law of reason to a will that by its subjective constitution is not necessarily determined by
it (or necessitation).”48
Kant introduces his concept of the “categorical imperative”, as opposed to the
hypothetical imperative; with hypothetical imperative being that which depends on
another action and the categorical imperative being that which is rationally necessary and
good in itself, independent of the other. Establishment of the categorical imperative at
47 Ibid 4:413
48 Ibid 4:413
45
this point is of course essential to his later observation of morality’s dependence on
synthetic a priori principles. This is rooted in Kant’s belief that, as Christine Korsgaard
puts it in the introduction to Kant’s Groundwork, “the categorical imperative is a law, to
which our maxims must conform. But the reason they must do so cannot be that there is
some further condition they must meet, or some other law to which they must
conform.”49
This in turn brings us to Kant’s notion of the only categorical imperative that there
is, namely, “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same
time will that it becomes a universal law.”50 He clarifies this idea by introducing the
notion of “the contradiction in conception test” and “the contradiction in the will test”.
The first one attempts to ensure that the maxim does not violate a “strict or a perfect”
duty, such as those that violate other’s rights. The second makes sure that the maxim
does not violate the “wide or imperfect” duties, like helping people when they are in
need. Herein lays the reason why Kant deems it necessary for humans to have
categorical imperatives at all, that is to serves the object of human fulfilment as an end in
itself. However, this is the principle that holds not only subjectively but also objectively,
hence, Kant’s assertion that one must act in such a way to consider humanity, “always at
the same time as an end, never merely as a means.”51
Here Kant touches upon an inherent difficulty of moral philosophy, namely the
contrast between humans’ genuine interest in abiding by the moral law, as opposed to the
possibility of conducting moral action in a purely unconditional and disinterested manner.
49 Christine Korsgaard. Kant’s Groundworks, (University Press 1998) xvii
50 Ibid. Kant. Groundwork 4:421
51 Ibid. 4:429
46
He notes that the reason why all previous efforts to discover the principle of morality
have failed is due to their ignorance of human autonomy and their endeavour to establish
a heteronomous moral principle not taking into account the significance of the
individual’s will. He therefore puts the responsibility on the individual only to act as a
law giving authority since he is a rational being and an end in itself. While the
heteronymous binding of the agent to morality might work to control the society, it will
not always work if the feeling of punishment and reward as a means of conditioning is
not there. Thus, Kant suggests that the binding should be of oneself to moral law directly
to create an autonomous motivation for the moral act. One notes that, in that sense,
Kant’s moral philosophy has advanced beyond organised religion as it opens a new space
for the individual’s freedom to recognise and adhere to moral law from their free will and
inner sense of duty. However, the question remain how can we trust that the individual
will indeed make a moral choice based on an inner sense of duty.
Kant’s response to the contrast between human’s interest in acting from moral
law, and the possibility of their disinterested adherence to it, is that in fact there is no
such a contrast at all, though only if the realisation prevails that “a free will and a will
under the moral law are of one and the same”52. This is a realisation based on a
conception of categorical imperative, in particular the Formula of Universal Law. As such
it seeks to establish congruence between one’s natural tendency to take certain action and
one’s moral obligation. Should an individual succeed in reaching such degree of moral
consistency in their natural conduct, they will have observed the “Formula of Universal
Law”, which according to Korsgaard “tells us to choose a maxim that we can will as a
52 Ibid 4:447
47
law. The only condition that it imposes on our actions is that they have the form of law.
Nothing determines any content for that law; all that it has to be is a law. As we have just
seen, Kant thinks that a will, as a cause, must operate according to a law. If the will is
free, then nothing determines any content for that law; all that it has to be is a law. What
this shows is that the moral law is just the principle of a free will: to have a free will and
to operate in accordance with Formula of Universal Law are, as Kant puts it, ‘one and the
same.”53 Thus Kant entails that we must encourage ourselves to take an interest in moral
concepts to create a natural state of congruence in our moral choices. This, we
supposedly do out of our own free will, the grounds for which Kant has already
established in his critique of pure reason.
Furthermore, having argued for the possibility of accord between human’s natural
tendency and their moral obligation, Kant sheds light on how divergence between the two
has prevailed in the first place. In regards to the source of this convolution Kant places
humans in a position whereby they are both morally free, as well as being subject to the
laws of nature. This is what sets the ground for the categorical imperative, namely, the
possibility of being both causally determined and morally free at the same time.
Therefore, according to Kant, we “ought to” subject ourselves to moral law, with the
knowledge in mind that we make this choice from our free will.
For Kant the dual nature of humans as sovereign beings, by means of their free
will, and constrained, in view of their being subject to laws of nature, bears empirical
significance in social terms. It is this which makes it possible to hold the individual
responsible for his or her own actions and create a state of order in the society. As
53Ibid. Xxvi
48
established by Kant in his practical reason, people have the freedom to choose not to act
in accordance with the moral law, which is why he, then, moves on to investigate how the
individual may cultivate moral feelings in themselves. Kant perhaps realised the potential
danger that his mechanistic world-view caused to his moral philosophy, drawing an
image of humans as deterministic manifestations of causal relationships in the physical
world – the so called natural “phenomena”. This was while the individual also carried the
burden of an unknown intelligible expression, as part of the realm of “noumena”.
Kant took this supposed understanding of the world – his mental model of reality
– to be given a priori. Yet the image carried a grey and pessimistic view of existence,
whereby humans had to discover the moral laws designed for their survival and peaceful
co-existence and act in accordance with them. One might argue that in attempting to base
his moral philosophy on transcendental idealism Kant had set himself a mission to give
meaning to life, by establishing a viable expression of metaphysics. He wished to go
further than the moral values of organised religions that had been preached, and that had
conditioned and controlled the human society for centuries. Now that he had established
the grounds of morality, however he faced the question of how the individual could be
motivated to act according to moral principles and out of a sense of duty. In his third
Critique, Kant talks of virtuous motivation, introducing a new element in his philosophy
that he notes would cultivate the moral feeling. This new element he introduces in his
philosophy, as an intellectual appreciation of aesthetics.
49
Aesthetics as a means of cultivating moral feelings
In the previous sections we noted how Kant arrived at the conclusion that pure
practical reason alone could discover the moral law. However he also lays emphasis on
the fact that conforming to moral law without the presentence of moral feelings does not
carry moral value. Despite having undertaken the difficult task of establishing the
possibility of freedom of will in humans, Kant stresses the significance of “virtue” as a
fundamental human condition.
Paul Guyer notes that for Kant, “virtue lies in motivation by the moral law alone;
reason alone suffices for knowledge of the moral law; knowledge of the moral law
suffices for knowledge of transcendental freedom of our will; and the freedom of our will
implies total control over the phenomenal realm, in spite of (rather, along with) the total
subjection of the latter to causal laws of nature”54 In his third Critique Kant expanded on
the virtue of motives, and he was interested in how we feel or should feel when we
comply with the moral law out of the freedom of our will. Also that how we comprehend
what is moral through our sensibility. It has to be noted however that Kant’s attention to
the role of feelings did not undermine the fact that reason alone could discover the moral
law. Rather this was a different aspect of our moral life in which moral conceptions,
moral actions and the primacy of practical reason all needed to be represented in the form
of feelings in order to carry substance.
54 Paul Guyer Kant and the experience of freedom, (Cambridge University Press 1996) p. 31
50
Kant believes that in order to further the moral feelings in oneself, one should
cultivate an aesthetic response both to the works of nature and art, although he
specifically emphasises the former over the latter. The discussion of aesthetics however
opens up an entirely new realm of complexities: firstly Kant differentiates between
different aspects of aesthetics. For example he believes the beauty of nature to be superior
to the beauty of art created by man, since an appreciation of nature is accessible to all
humans. In the case of fine arts, however, one requires genius and talent, not only to
create but also to evaluate them. Moreover Kant holds that in viewing the nature we
appreciate “a beautiful thing”; this is while “beauty of art is a beautiful representation of
a thing.”55 In separating the work of nature from the humans’ work of art, Kant restricts
the correlation between aesthetics and morality, reducing the chance of complications
caused by the impact of taste and genius.
However, appreciation of nature itself may not remain free from bias, given the
impact of the individual taste, which could in turn be influenced by other external factors.
Kant, indeed, acknowledges that the judgement of taste, as a cognitive judgement, may
not develop from a logical perspective and he notes that the determining ground of beauty
“cannot be other than subjective”56. How can we then conclude a definition of beautiful
that may be agreed upon by all, despite the diversity of taste?
55 Kant. Critique of judgement (Oxford University Press 1979) (48, 310)
56 Ibid. (1, 203) p41
51
Kant tries to resolve this bias, suggesting that we distinguish between two
separate conceptions of tastes. Taste could be based on a kind of personal interest of the
subject, in which case it would be irrelevant to the discussion of morality. However for
Kant it is possible to establish a conception of beauty as a “pure disinterested delight”
that will supposedly allow us to evaluate the beauty of an object without the judgement
lending itself to subjective interest. Only the feeling of delight that the beautiful creates
must be universal and pure. What is meant by “pure” is that one’s empirical knowledge
may not interfere with the perception of delight; rather the feeling of delight has to occur
upon immediate interaction with the object.
Elsewhere on the ideal of beauty, Kant also says that we must not waste our time
in trying to find a set definition of beauty. He believes such an inquiry to be “throwing
out labour to look for a principle of taste that affords a universal criterion of the beautiful
by concept”57 because such a thing does not exist and the concept itself is of one of
contradiction. Nevertheless, it is worth considering the argument that Kant’s rationale for
establishing a standard for beauty brings to light his dedication to a Platonic conception
of the beautiful as a metaphysical manifestation of the “truth”.
57 Ibid 75 (17, 232)
52
One has to note that, although on the first instance, the association of aesthetics
with morality in Kant’s thoughts may seem like a derivation from his logical reasoning,
this is in fact indicative of a mathematical conception behind his thoughts. The reason for
this is that while an empirical conception of “truth” or “beauty” would not make sense
without ascribing such “pure” concepts to a specific object. However in mathematical
terms certain abstractions could be argued to be beautiful or true in themselves. For
example, physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose, who admits to the Platonic
conjectures behind his thoughts, contends that reality as we perceive it is a representation
of three aspects of an underlying “truth”, which manifests itself in terms of the
mathematical, physical and the mental world. In this Platonic view, it would seem that,
our perception of morality is routed in the mathematical world. In a similar fashion, one
may contend that, for Kant, is also a perception of beauty is an abstract mathematical
vision that allows him to set a “standard”, rather than assign a “definition” to beauty.
Thus Kant sets certain measures in determining the kind of beauty that may
represent a conception of the good in itself in furthering one’s morality. Such an object
for him may not be a beauty “free and at large”, but it has to be fixed. While this
fixedness does not affect the earlier requirement of the object’s universality it does draw a
line between different kinds of universal beauties. Furthermore even within that realm we
should look for an object that lends itself to an altogether “pure” judgement of taste and
that it will be comprehensible intellectually. With this in mind Kant then goes on to make
a distinction between the concept of the beautiful and the sublime.
53
For Kant the beautiful and the sublime both share the ability to please merely on
their own accounts (hence they may be appreciated by means of a disinterested taste).
However there are striking, though intricate, dissimilarities between them. What Kant
establishes as the essence of this difference is conception of the form of an object,
whereas the sublime is found in an object even devoid of form; it therefore holds a
representation of limitlessness.
It would seem that for Kant, the beautiful is “a presentation of an intermediate
concept of understanding” hence being one of quality, but the sublime presents “an
intermediate concept of reason” and as such maybe associated with quantity. Kant goes
on to explain that the difference between the two may be understood in terms of different
kinds of feelingsthat they give us, “for the beautiful is directly attended with a feeling of
furtherance of life, and thus is compatible with charms and a playful imagination.”
However the sublime is a “feeling of momentary check to the vital forces followed at
once by a discharge all the more powerful”, the emotions accompanied by which seem to
be “dead earnest in the affairs of imagination.”58 An example of the beautiful could be the
bright day light, or a mild breeze on a spring noon; while an experience of the sublime
could be the depth of darkness across the ocean in the night. With regards to the idea of
the sublime, Guyer further explains that, for Kant, while the beautiful itself is a
representation of morality, the sublime reveals our morality to us.59 The reason for this is
presumably Kant’s association of the sublime with the notion of mortality, which at once
startles and comforts as it reminds one of one’s eventual death, yet reassures of one’s
58 Ibid (23 244) 90
59 Guyer Paul, Kant and the experience of freedom, (Cambridge University Press 1996) p. 99
54
present subsistence. One may argue that what inclines Kant to refute the sublime in
furthering one’s moral feelings is that for him appreciation of the sublime could not
manifest disinterestedly. This leads to a degradation of the true nature of the sublime and
the negativity that results from it could affect moral feelings given the interference of
reason – which makes one aware of the subjectivity of one’s experience – due to “the
objective inadequacy of imagination in its greatest extension for meeting the demand of
reason (as a faculty the end of ideas).60” Once Kant has separated the perception of the
beautiful and the sublime he then points out that a disinterested perception of aesthetics
could manifest as transcendental judgement. As noted earlier a transcendental notion of
aesthetics could, metaphorically, be understood in terms of an expression of mathematical
truth, as abstractions that have an independent reality.
Kant furthermore suggests that the very experience and appreciation of the
beautiful must be cultivated as a duty, precisely because it is aimed to further one’s
morality. Nevertheless, even if we take the question of interest out of this analysis and
we treat the appreciation of the beautiful as a duty, this as yet does not fully resolve the
question of “taste”; since even in a purely disinterested manner bias may occur.
Therefore, Kant’s theory of taste aims to address how we should come to deduct the
judgement of taste with the obligation to furnish a deduction, such as to guarantee the
legitimacy of our judgement. Kant recognises that the judgement of the beautiful is not
based on cognition, but on pleasure and displeasure, and he tries to explain how it could
be possible that the delight of one person may be pronounced as a rule for everyone.
Since the judgement is not conceptual, for Kant it has a universal validity a priori -
60 Ibid (29, 269)
55
without the need to having a “logical” explanation. It also carries a sense of necessity,
which has a priori grounds but does not have a priori proof, hence being separate from
all cognitive judgement. Kant introduces several grounds for recognising the beautiful.
For example whatever has longest remained in the esteem in the course of human culture.
Or an object may be understood as beautiful relative to others as a result of comparison.
He also notes the feeling of pleasure has to come immediately; therefore it cannot be
based on a fundamental premise. Taste contains a principle of judgement based on
supposition of intuition under imagination rather than intuition under conception. The
problem of the judgement of taste is the projection of a subjective a priori principle.
Judgement of taste is singular in that it unites its predicate of delight not as a concept “but
to a given singular empirical representation”. Therefore it is not the feeling of pleasure
that we are concerned with, but the universal validity of the pleasure perceived, i.e.
sensus communis or a “public sense”61. Finally Kant remarks “to take an immediate
interest in the beauty of nature (not merely to have Taste in estimating it) is always a
mark of a good soul; and that, where this interest is habitual, it is at least indicative of a
temper of mind favourable to the moral feeling that it should readily associate itself with
the contemplation of nature.”62 Nevertheless, despite Kant’s beautiful and poetic
expression of the nature of aesthetics, it does not seem convincing enough that one’s
interest in the beauties of nature will further one’s morality. Thus he further investigates
ways to establish the grounds for morality in his teleological conceptions.
61Ibid. 40, 294
62 Ibid. 40, 249
56
Teleological understanding of existence
Recognising the inadequacy of aesthetic appreciation in cultivating moral
feelings, Kant notes that it needs to be accompanied by a teleological grasp of nature as a
purposive system, although, as Guyer points out, “only with respect to the necessary end
of human freedom”63. It is important to keep in mind the emphasis on the deliberate link
that Kant makes between his teleological view of nature and its necessity for human
freedom. By this Kant seems to implicate that the original creator of the universe may not
have necessarily created the world with a purpose, but that as humans we need to
perceive the world as a purposive whole to allow us to appreciate a sensible image of
morality. From the two notions of aesthetics and teleology we deduct that, while pure
reason gives us the knowledge of moral law, we need aesthetics to truly grasp the
purposive nature of morality. What Kant tried to establish thorough this argument was the
possibility of directing one’s feelings in such a way as to be congruent with the sense of
duty. As such he sought harmony in humans’ natural and rational being in creating a
balance between the development of aesthetics as well as a teleological grasp of nature.
Aesthetics carries a sensible representation of morality, as well as allowing us to
grasp the beauty of nature and art in order to cultivate moral feelings. However we must
also remember that Kant perceived it as one’s duty to bring one’s senses under a rational
being and to put human feelings and reason in the same line. Yet this “duty” we only
perceive by rational reason. Therefore even to choose to cultivate moral feelings for him
was a subject of our rationality.
63 Ibid
57
This somewhat mechanistic perspective, however, may raise the question whether
an induced sense of “appreciation” of aesthetics through the force of reason would be
practically feasible, and would it be a fruitful way to achieve the “virtue” of intention that
Kant hoped to provoke?
While the answer to the above question might not be readily found in Kant’s
critique of judgement based on aesthetics, the teleological judgement comes into play in
making certain clarifications. This is where he points out the purposiveness of “parts of
nature” as organs of a bigger organism, while he acknowledges “strictly speaking” that
“the organisation of nature has nothing analogous to any causality known to us”64. He
thinks however that “what is here present to our minds is an artist – a rational being –
working from without”, because we are aware of the fact that according to laws of
physics things do not happen without reason, hence our inability to free ourselves from
this “teleological principle”. This is the final end that we do not arrive at in the same
fashion as we arrived at the physical causes of phenomena; rather it is a “condition that is
the unconditional condition”,65 and, as such, is considered to be the “inherent principle of
natural science”.
Within the limitations of a classical perception of science Kant, certainly,
recognises one’s inability to conceive a final end. The final end for him “is not an end,
which nature would be competent to realise or produce in terms of its idea, because it is
one that is unconditional. For in nature as a thing of sense there is nothing whose
64 Ibid Kant, Critique of judgement, part I. 375
65 Ibid, part II. 379
58
determining ground, discoverable in nature itself, is not always in turn conditioned.”66 He
therefore attributes the design of nature to a “supernatural cause”, hence making a
distinction between the classical view of science and the realm “metaphysics”, which he
believes to hold the answer to the answers to that part human’s scientific investigation
that cannot be answered within classical science and, as such, is incapable of providing
the necessary justification for humans’ morality and eventually their peaceful co-
existence. Nevertheless, despite his knowledge of that fact that metaphysics is all together
grounded in humans’ own suppositions and conjectures, he believes the discussion to
leave no room for misinterpretation.
In this fashion in his teleological judgement Kant places humans in a position of
incongruency with nature as a purposeless work of art: the result of the will of a
“supernatural” power. Thus, Guyer and Wood note, in an appendix to the ‘Dialectic’,
“Kant begins a limited rehabilitation of the ideas of traditional metaphysics by arguing
that the ideas of reason have an important function in the conduct of natural science if
they are understood regulative, that is if they are taken to represent not metaphysical
beings or entities whose reality is supposed to be demonstrable, but rather goals and
directions of inquiry that mark out the ways in which our knowledge is to be sought for
and organised.” As such, “this is true of the idea of a simple soul, which stimulates us to
search for a unified psychology; of the idea of a complete world whole, which leads us
constantly to expand the domain of our scientific investigations; and above all the idea of
God”.67
66 Ibid, part II 23, 435
67 Guyer Paul, and Allan Wood, Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge University Press1998, p. 18
59
Nevertheless, for Kant the presupposition that a supernatural greater mind has
created the physical world as a work of art for the sake of art does not have to interfere
with the grounds of human morality; therefore, in order to thrive, we as intelligent
creatures must, live morally in our life time. This presupposition, together with his earlier
rationalisation of human freedom, allows Kant to establish his moral philosophy.
Kant’s political philosophy
To study Kant’s political philosophy one must inevitably turn to his moral
philosophy, as the two, for Kant, are inseparable and his political thought is strictly based
on his perception of morality, which in turn reflects his classical world-view and his
metaphysical understanding of existence. Thus according to Kant our knowledge of
nature and the human experience takes shape based on the observations of classical
science as well a priori postulations. Kant points out how this knowledge not only helps
us recognize the boundaries of the moral law, but also makes us responsible to comply
with them. In addition, for Kant, aesthetics and teleology come into play in furthering
moral feelings in humans. Kant’s moral philosophy extends beyond the exploration of
aesthetics and teleology in furthering moral feeling. Rather, he is also concerned with the
social implementation of moral “law” in instigating a state of order in the society. For
Kant, moral actions are based on a sense of duty, and therefore when there is a conflict of
interest between two subjects, the principle of moral duty is what determines between
right and wrong, or moral and immoral action. As Reiss puts it “Kant calls the general
moral law the categorical imperative” which “categorically enjoins us to act in
60
accordance with morality.”68 Kant sees man’s peaceful coexistence possible only if
everyone acts in a way that their action could become a universal law, and this is also
what is expected of the state in its conduct with respect to its subjects. For Kant to choose
a maxim is akin to choosing a policy69. Thus he alerts man to act out of moral
responsibility. “The test of morality of a maxim” according to Reiss “is whether or not it
agrees with the moral principle of the maxim becoming a universal law”, hence the
observation that “that the will of the rational being is subject to the categorical
imperative, is an a priori synthetic proposition” thus being “practically necessary”70.
Kant realises that the mere recognition of the categorical imperatives does not
assure that the individuals or that states left to their own will act in accordance to it. This
is a concern for establishment of order in the society both in terms of the individuals and
the state relationship, hence being the point where politics meets morality. Patrick Riley
notes that for Kant, “politics needs to reflect morality but cannot count on moral motives,
only legal ones; morality must have a relation to Kantian politics without collapsing the
meaning of public legal justice into that of good will and respect for persons.” In other
words “morality and public legal justice must be related in such a way that morality
shapes politics – by forbidding war and insisting on eternal peace and the rights of man –
without becoming the motive of politics”.71 He holds that as mechanistic beings, humans’
freedom may be subjected to domination of others, hence leading to a predominant state
of conflict and sets to prevent the prevalence of such a state in the society.
68 Ibid
69 Stephan Korner, Kant, (Penguin, 1955) p. 134
70 Ibid
71 Patrick Riley, Kant’s Political Philosophy, (Rowman & Allenheld Publishers, 1983) p. 2
61
He therefore attempts to establish a moral legal system that insures the society
members’ treatment of one another in good will, based on mutual respect for the others’
freedom. This is essentially the grounds of what we refer to in contemporary politics as
universal human rights. Such a state of mutual respect for freedom of others, be it in the
relationship between governing bodies and their subjects or in interstate relationships,
creates an atmosphere of security that decreases the possibility of conflict driven from a
quest for power. This is in turn enthused as a fear driven reaction resulting from the need
to preserve one’s sovereignty in the face of the knowledge of self interest as a natural
condition of all phenomena, raising the question: how humans may co-exist peacefully
despite their inherently self interested nature.
The answer which Kant explores in his moral and political philosophy is to
initially recognise the moral actions as a means towards a perpetual peace and the
political institution as the way to guarantee its establishment. Riley points out, in this
regards, that “Morality, for Kant, is objective; but we can know from subjective facts of
human ‘pathology’ that something like fear may deter us from acting morally. Thus there
can be a duty to block – legally – the effect of morality – deflecting fears and
appetites.”72 Consequently, for Kant, politics seems to be essentially “the principles of
right”73. The role of philosophy in politics is therefore to draw a line between right and
wrong; the role of law is to ensure that that justice is in order.
72 Ibid P 11
73 Ibid P 18
62
Freedom and contract are key notions for the Kantian foundation of legal justice
and in the generation of a system that allows the peaceful coexistence of human subjects.
Such a Kantian public legal justice, as Riley puts it, “is instrumental to morality in two
senses….in a slightly weaker sense, it simply creates conditions for the exercise of a good
will; in a somewhat stronger sense, it legally enforces certain ends that ought to be (e.g.,
no murder), even where good will is absent and only legal motives are present. But,
whether in a weaker or stronger sense, politics remains the instrument of the sole
‘unqualified’ good.”74 However one may note that such a view of freedom conveys a
superficial sense that does not, truly, leave room for human agency and autonomy. This
view as Riley states “provides a way of integrating Kant’s frequently stated doctrine of
the original contract into a teleological view in which ends are ‘there’(as it were), not
produced”75, hence all the previous talk of human autonomy does not really seem fruitful,
when it comes to practice.
Thus a critique of Kant’s moral philosophy and his political theory comes to mind
in light of the mechanistic world-view that inclined him to assume the existence of a
priori principles of morality to which humans should adhere for the purpose of their
peaceful co-existence and in order to achieve fulfilment. Yet one may argue that to
demand action based upon moral duty may potentially lead to the suppression of human
creativity and progression and that even if it succeeds in creating a state of order in the
society it does not leave sufficient room for proactive participation of the individuals in
creating the conditions of their own lives. It would seem that the objective of moral
74 Korner Stephan, Kant, (Penguin 1955), p. 18
75 Ibid Riley P 18
63
philosophy throughout history has been to discover how humans could achieve
contentment in life and for Kant the prevalence of a state of peace in the society is
ultimately a step towards this objective: a condition that presumably would prevail in a
cosmopolitan society driven by republican ideals.
In conclusion: it transpires from the discussion of this chapter that Kant’s train of
thought brought him to advocate a certain type of social structure in the form of a
republic – or what we would today refer to as a democratic society. We critiqued the
mechanistic aspects of Kant’s moral philosophy and the fact that he attempted to
compensate for the shortcomings of his classical world-view through establishment of
metaphysical a priori notions. However, Kant’s postulation of the validity of a priori
principles prevented him from observing that the establishment of moral philosophy by
itself did not account for the conception of morality; nor did it justify human
contentment.
Thus Kant’s philosophy leaves the conception of human contentment and
consequently the value of morality open to question: one that is later raised by Nietzsche.
In questioning the value of morality it comes to light that Kant’s transcendental
philosophy is anchored in a reaction to fear of change and the quest for a static view of
life, as he sees change in a negative light restraining human contentment. Kant remarks
that the moral and physical state of man would never allow him to “unite contentment
with the prospect of his condition” as he will be “enduring in an eternal condition of
change.”76 Knowledge of this condition of change in humans leads to the awareness that
a peaceful state of affairs in the society would only be possible in the face of a co-
76 On History, ed. Beck, (Prentice Hall January 11, 1963) pp. 78-79
64
relational bonding between the agents, whereby the well being of one may depend upon
the other. Kant’s notion of perpetual peace therefore hopes to instigate peaceful co-
existence of human subjects while they undergo a constant state of change as an inherent
aspect of their nature. What ensures the establishment of such relative interconnectedness
is mutual agreements in the form of “contracts”, arguably as “the only basic model of
rational law”77.
77 Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias, Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal, (1997 MassachusettsInstitute of Technology) p. 60
65
Chapter II – Nietzsche
In exploring the political implications of Nietzsche’s thoughts, this chapter offers
a perspective in response to Kant’s moral philosophy, which constitutes the foundations
of his transcendental idealism, with a view to portraying an alternative model based on
Nietzsche’s philosophy. Investigation into Nietzsche’s ideas may allow us to see the
shortcomings of a cosmopolitan social structure, and the ideals associated with this
model, such as the notions of democracy and universal human rights. One might make a
case that Nietzsche’s critique of Kant could conceivably provide us with a more
comprehensive theoretical approach in characterising the 21st century politics and the
globalisation era, in light of Nietzsche’s notion of chaos and his revaluation of moral
values.
Nevertheless, in establishing the grounds of these arguments, we would inevitably
return to the question of science and the fundamental disparity between Kant and
Nietzsche’s perception of the natural world, and their existential probe into the human
condition. This in turn poses the question of the link between formation of moral values
based on humans’ understanding of the natural world (their mental model of reality), and
the way in which these impressions shape the structure of the societies.
With that in mind, the first chapter followed the Kantian train of thought on such
notions as knowledge based on science and metaphysics, dissecting the foundations of his
moral philosophy. In contrast to Kant, whose theory of knowledge was the starting point
of our analysis; with Nietzsche one may first explore his hypotheses of evaluation and
truth, and consider these as the cornerstone of his genealogical inquiry into the value of
morality.
66
Such an approach will allow us to shed light on Nietzsche’s divergence from a
fundamental conviction in Kant’s philosophy, which constitutes the foundation of his
idealism; namely, belief in a transcendental conception of the truth. The idea of truth as a
transcendental concept implicates a static perception of the natural world in terms of
separations between the subject and the object and the cause and effect, portraying an
image of the individuals, as separate subjects capable of acting upon reason from their
free will. Such a Kantian ideal society projects a utopian world-view that lies at the heart
of what we would now perceive as liberalism. However, while the individual is
seemingly given a high degree of freedom in a liberalistic society, the freedom comes at
the cost of increasingly rigorous judgement.
According to David Owen, as he notes in his Nietzsche, Politics & Modernity, the
individuals in a liberal society are transcendental subjects, “constituted by their social
roles or conceptions of the good but are always already independent of, and prior to,
these roles and conceptions”78. This metaphysical image of the individual presents a
conception of the society in terms of a social “contract”, facilitating reciprocal co-
operations between persons. For Kant, as Owen notes, the ultimate goal of mutual pursuit
of autonomy and security by individuals is “their submission to the categorical
imperative”.79 Thus the static perception of the truth, as a pre-established transcendental
ideal, is concerned with human freedom, only in so far as the individuals could be bound
in mutual treaties, creating a state of order in the society and to be held responsible,
should they stray from their pledge.
78 David Owen, Nietzsche, Politics & Modernity, (SAGE, 1997) p. 7,
79 Ibid
67
Nietzsche, however, sees this fundamental flaw of Kant’s transcendental idealism and
realises that morality has merely found a value, owing to the humans’ self inflicted
conviction, with the objective of allowing them to control the societies. He recognises the
dangers of assuming a static conception of moral values; as these values “become
pregnant”, feeding humans’ delusion, and cause distress to their interaction in society. As
Gianni Vattimo notes, “the use of category of morality to characterise all ‘higher’ spiritual
forms does not only result…from a broad and undefined use of this concept. To
Nietzsche, there lies at the root of all prejudices even those of religion and metaphysics,
the problem of man’s ‘practical’ relationship with the world and in this sense everything
spiritual has to do with morality as it is practiced”80.
Vatimo notes that for Nietzsche “everything that declares itself superior and
transcendent, everything that we deem valuable, is nothing more than a product of the
sublimation of ‘human, all too human’ factors; and not in the sense that moral values and
the actions that result from them are only conscious lies on the part of those who preach
them and act accordingly. Instead errors come to light in them, to which one can
subscribe in all good faith.”81
The observation that science failed to offer convincing answers to the
fundamental questions of reality added to Nietzsche’s concern; and so he turned to art for
presenting a poetic expression of the natural world. Yet, as he puts aside the supernatural,
in giving an alternative explanation of the nature of existence, many of Nietzsche’s ideas
resonate with newer discoveries of modern science, which now give us a better
80 Gianni Vattimo, Nietzsche an Introduction,(The Athlon Press London, 1985) p.61
81 Ibid p.63
68
understanding of ourselves and the world. In science lies the answer to many questions of
why human beings behave the way they do. Knowledge and understanding allow us to
see these facts with cold clear eyes, as they give us the tools to deliberately manipulate
them for more empowered and enriched experience of life. Nietzsche realises that
uncertainty is an essential underlying condition of life: a notion that man has feared most,
giving rise to their invention of God. Nietzsche, however, embraces life’s uncertainty and
the essentially chaotic and paradoxical character of nature. Indeed, the “crown” of
Nietzsche’s philosophy, the overman, is a figurative reunion of paradoxes, which only
adds to his strength of character. The overman, as Alan Schrift notes, “is introduced
initially as ‘the other’ to both man and God. This is to say: while man is the other of God
and God the other of man, the Ubermench is each other’s other. The Ubermench can
appear only after the death of God (cf. ‘On the Gift-Giving Virtue’ and ‘On the Blessed
Isles’); and the Ubermench is that which man will become if he overcomes and becomes-
other than himself.”82 Man’s only real solution to thriving in life is to become master over
its very condition, his uncertainty. For Nietzsche, the way to such triumph is not by
denying life’s uncertainty, and insisting upon the legitimacy of our conjectures, but by
affirming the unpredictable and the chance elements as the essential characteristic of life
that allow us to revaluate our moral values which we have based upon our presumptions.
82 Richard Schacht, Nietzsche’s Postmoralism, Essays on Nietzsche and Philosophy of future (CambridgeUniversity press 2001) p. 53
69
Evaluation and the truth
Nietzsche employs a genealogical method in his revaluation of moral values,
whereby he appears to draw a symmetrical outline between the process of human
evolution and the genealogy of morals. What he is truly interested in is humans’
progression, specifically the evolution of the individual, which inevitably leads to the
evolution of the political systems. Genealogy gives him the tool to evaluate the precepts
that drive the progression of humans as social beings. For Nietzsche, as Schacht puts it,
“the philosopher is a genealogist rather than a Kantian tribunal judge or a utilitarian
mechanic,” in his view “genealogy means both the value of origins and the origin of
values”.83 As such, he investigates how moral precepts are formed in the first place.
Nietzsche’s critique of morality traces the genealogy of morals back to Plato. As
Lambert puts it, he sees the opposite of all that has the potential to enhance human
civilisation, in “millennia of platonic dogmatism and centuries of modern spiritual
warfare against it that have left it in ruins.”84 Also, for Deleuze, according to Vattimo,
“Nietzsche’s philosophy is an attempt to abandon metaphysics. This attempt was made
concrete in Nietzsche’s resistance to dialectics, which contains all the ingredients of the
metaphysical thinking: from Socrates’ invention of the concept to the Christian notion of
suffering, from theology to merely reactive thinking.”85
83 Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy (The Athlone Press 1983), p. 2-3
84 Laurence Lambert, Nietzsche’s task; (Yale University Press) 2001 P.8
85 Ibid, Giani Vattimo, p. 191
70
However, one may question the origins of Plato’s own dogmatic perception of
truth. Hanna Arendt notes that Plato’s “tyranny of truth” began as a reaction to the death
of Socrates. This event inclined him to draw the conclusion that the only way to
guarantee the philosopher’s safety in the society was for him to rule others86. For Arendt,
fear is the will to power from impotence.
Furthermore, if fear stems from lack of knowledge; it is in the absence of
knowledge that desire for absolute control or the absolute renunciation of control reigns.
The assumed fragmentary image of humanity that comes to view in all forms of social
structures throughout history is itself a consequence of lack of knowledge that has led to
metaphysical conjectures. Such conjectures have in time grown powerful enough to
justify the authoritarian relationship between the ruler and the ruled, and established a
perception of the ordinary individuals in the society as the “subject” of the sovereign’s
control. The notion that man lacked absolute knowledge of “truth” gave way to the
portrayal of an omnipotent presence, namely gods, who possessed knowledge of all
things and all times. Thus, as God’s successor, the ruler, the king, the philosopher or the
supreme leader was believed to have been bestowed with knowledge and wisdom by
God, which justified his authority over the “ordinary” men. For Plato “truth” was a static
concept, accessible to the philosopher in the privacy of his mind; it was not inexpressible
in plurality; nor did it take into account the value of others’ perspectives. The sovereign
was, therefore, believed to know the good of everyone, better than themselves.
86 Hanna Arendt, The promise of politics, (The literary Trust of Hannah Arendt and Jerome Kohn 2005) p.xxvii
71
Thus, Platonic authoritarian perception of truth set the stage for justification of
control, which remained present throughout the history of western political thought from
Plato to Kant, merely altering in its degrees of rigorousness as social structures evolved
through various forms of tyranny, and monarchy, to republic. In all of these forms of
social structures the presumption that the individuals are distinct free willed subject,
responsive to the rule of a higher power, allows for justification of “domination” and
“authority” in the first place.
However, for Nietzsche, such presumptions are groundless and their “truth”
cannot be tested in any absolute way; hence his concern in seeking an alternative
perception of “truth”, namely, “perspectivism”. Perspectivism is where Nietzsche’s
method diverges from his predecessors. Neither Kant’s notion of transcendental idealism,
nor Hume’s scepticism, was nearly as effective in providing an entirely new conception
humans’ moral life. Thus Walter Kaufmann notes: it is in the context of the perspectival
alone that Nietzsche recognises “a hierarchy of complementary perspectives and
ultimately allows, even demands, plausible interferences to testable conclusions.”87 One
might say that Nietzsche’s approach to investigating the foundations of moral philosophy
is essentially scientific, given that he searches for falsifiable hypothesis as opposed to
inexpressible absolute metaphysical conjectures that would have to be presumed as a
priori notions. Consequently, Nietzsche frees himself from the corollary of rationalism.
In his book Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, Kaufman writes, “Nietzsche
himself considered his opposition to rationalism a major point of departure from
traditional philosophy; and it is undoubtedly the source of his most far-reaching
87 Ibid Lambert Laurence, p. 12
72
differences with Kant and Hegel”88. Further he notes that Nietzsche’s own philosophy,
“even shows many decided affinities to Kant’s; but Kant’s failure to question the
existence of universal moral law provoked Nietzsche’s attacks which further illustrate his
reason for opposing systems and his ‘existential’ identification of any failure to question
with the desire to experience.”89 Nietzsche warns against accepting a faith merely
because it is customary, and calls this cowardice, laziness, and dishonesty.90
It is this desire to truly experience that he hopes to incite in man, to develop his
own unique perspective on things; rather than accepting unthinkingly what is presented as
the good in itself. For Nietzsche, there is no such thing as the good in itself; all is
perspectival. Although the question may arise: how free from stringency is this
statement? To characterise all phenomena as “perspectival” may appear as a fixation of
one’s doctrine of reality. However, the point here is that the perspectival method allows
itself to be tested and evaluated in a way that “the good in itself” does not. In
perspectivism, one bases one’s knowledge on what one has a degree of verifiable
information on, while being open to its expansion and deconstruction in interaction with
plurality of other perspectives. It is the falsifiable character of perspectival knowledge
that undermines the Kantian “a priori” knowledge, as Nietzsche does not take any
condition of life for granted, but questions with a real yearning to understand.
88 Kaufmann, Walter, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, (Princeton University Press 1975)p. 103
89 Ibid
90 Friedrich Nietzsche Daybreak, (Cambridge University Press) p. 101
73
Nietzsche realises the value of evaluation: and unlike Kant he does not fall into
the dogmas of metaphysics to make up for the incompleteness of human knowledge. He
admits that that which we do not know, we must seek; rather than compensate for through
metaphysical conjectures. In Beyond Good and Evil he criticises Kant’s “Table of
Categories”, which in Kant’s opinion was “the most difficult thing that could ever be
undertaken on behalf of metaphysics”91. Nietzsche reproaches Kant for having been
proud to discover a new faculty of synthetic a priori judgement92; reflecting on Kant’s
response to the question: “how are synthetic a priori judgements possible”93, to which
Kant’s responds: “by means of a (faculty)”. Nietzsche however calls this a mere
repetition of the question, belonging to the “realm of comedy”. Instead he realises that the
problem is not in the answer that Kant provides, but it is the question that has to be
replaced. He points out that, not only did Kant deceive himself in this matter; he
influenced other young philosophers, in that they also looked to discover new faculties.
Therefore, Nietzsche emphasises that one has to be aware of the difference between
“discovering” and “inventing” ideas. Furthermore, he suggests that we replace the
question of “how are synthetic judgements a priori possible?” by another question that
“why is belief in such judgement necessary?”94, hence attacking a fundamental
presupposition of Kant’s philosophy. Deleuze notes that “Nietzsche made no secret of the
fact that the philosophy of sense and values had to be a critique.” Therefore, he points out
91 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, (Cambridge University Press) Sec. 11
92 Ibid
93 Ibid
94 Ibid
74
“one of the principal motifs of Nietzsche’s work (is) in that Kant had not carried out a
true critique because he was not able to pose the problem of critique in terms of
values.”95 In questioning the value of values Nietzsche exposes those who criticize or
respect values by deriving them from “simple facts”: the so called, “objective facts”. For
Deleuze, this also applies to philosophers such as Kant and Schopenhauer, who remove
values from criticism, “contenting themselves with producing inventories of existing
values or with criticising things in the name of existing values”96
To shed light on Nietzsche’s conception of truth one has to understand his
pluralism. This view may be contrasted with the notion of dualism as discussed in Kant’s
philosophy, which represented his classical world-view. Dualism of essence and
appearance, cause and effect, and subject and object was essential to Kant’s perception of
truth. As Patrick Hayden explains, based on Deleuze’s reading of Nietzsche, Nietzsche
“does not take a phenomenon to be the appearance of some deeper essence, but rather as
a sign or ‘symptom’ of a particular mode of existence or way of life. Phenomena do not
refer to transcendent, noumenal realities: every phenomenon, thing, organism, or society
‘finds its meaning in an existing force’ that acquires and expresses a certain sense
depending on the force or forces which appropriate it.”97 The truth of phenomena for
Nietzsche is not hidden behind their appearance; what gives meaning to them is an
interdependent co-relation of forces. Hence there is no truth of things in themselves, truth
is an “interpretation” and “evaluation” of phenomena relative to other phenomena.
95 Gilles Deleuze. Nietzsche and Philosophy, (The Athlone Press 1983), Introduction
96 Ibid p. 2
97 Patrick Hayden. Multiplicity and Becoming: the pluralist empiricism of Gilles Deleuze (Peter LangPublishing, Inc, New York 1998) p 49
75
However it has to be noted that there is a profound difference between Nietzsche’s
perspectivism and the so called “correspondence theory of truth”. In criticising the
correspondence theory of truth Nietzsche argues beyond rational thinking, in other words
as Grimm puts it, Nietzsche attempts to overthrow “an entire mode of perceiving reality
i.e. an entire cognitive paradigm”98. This is a paradigm that for millennia we have based
on the concept of “the original cause”, a mere figment of our imagination. In Beyond
Good and Evil Nietzsche writes, “The causa sui is the best self-contradiction that has yet
been conceived, it is a sort of logical violation and unnaturalness; but the extravagant
pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with this very
folly.”99
Grimm further notes, with regards to Nietzsche’s perspectivism, that “we (as well
as all other entities), as complexes and centres of power, necessarily interpret a world for
ourselves out of flux and chaos of power-quanta. However, this interpretation or
perspectival falsification is not an interpretation of some underlying reality which
continues to exist regardless of how we happen to interpret.” Instead for Nietzsche “the
world is our interpretation, and nothing else.”100 At times this error simply takes place as
we confuse causes and consequences, that Nietzsche calls “reason’s intrinsic form of
corruption”. For Nietzsche this error is “sanctified” among us, bearing names of
“religion” and “morality”. It is the command to “do this and this and refrain from this and
this”, in order to achieve happiness that he opposes. He refers to his critique as the
98 Rudiger Herman Grim, Nietzsche’s Theory of Knowledge, Walter de Gruyter 1997, Chapter 6 (thetraditional cognitive paradigm)
99 Ibid S 21
100 Grimm P 91
76
“immortal unreason”, a “converted formula” that is the first example of “revaluation of
all values”.101 Furthermore, Nietzsche portrays a perspectival account of happiness,
whereby the boundaries between moral deed and human contentment dissolves. Not only
can one not infer a causal relationship between happiness and morality, but the very idea
of happiness is portrayed as mere potentiality that finds meaning relative to time, space in
human experience. In this manner he exposes the static portrayal of human values as a
historical fallacy. This what Foucault means when he refers to Nietzsche’s notion of
effective history as “affirmation of knowledge as perspective”. Although the affirmation
of knowledge as perceptive in historical terms does not aim to justify any specific
“knowledge” in terms of a theory of judgement; rather, Nietzsche hopes to expose the
biases of historical perceptions of values, as he observes the historians’ attempt to
disguise controversies, through modifying the grounds of a given time and place, in their
protection. Foucault further notes that, “Nietzsche's version of historical sense is explicit
in its perspective and acknowledges its system of injustice. Its perception is slanted,
being a deliberate appraisal, affirmation, or negation; it reaches the lingering and
poisonous traces in order to prescribe the best antidote. It is not given to a discreet
effacement before the objects it observes and does not submit itself to their processes; nor
does it seek laws, since it gives equal weight to its own sight and to its objects. Through
this historical sense, knowledge is allowed to create its own genealogy in the act of
cognition; and wirklicheHistorie composes a genealogy of history as the vertical
projection of its position”.102 Nietzsche sets an example as one who seeks the truth
101 Nietzsche, Twilight of idols, The four great errors
102 Michel Foucault, Nietzsche, Genealogy, History 1977
77
regardless of its consequences and free from prejudices. Nevertheless, this does not
indicate that he assumes the value of truth as given. Rather, his revaluation of all values
extends in so far as posing the question on “truth” itself. In Gay Science, Nietzsche
critiques the will to truth103; as it transpires that in a given context truth has its own
criteria of evaluation. The implications of such imperative question becomes apparent, for
example, when we consider how assertions based on metaphysical conjectures, and those
based on factual findings of science affect our interpretation, perception and ultimately,
experience of reality. Of course, science alone does not give us the philosophical
implications of its finding. Yet one’s experience of life depends on one’s world-view,
which could be integrated subconsciously, as a result of social and political conditioning.
For Nietzsche it is the latent ability of science in destroying not only the Platonic
and the Christian tradition but also its ability to abolish “morality itself” that fascinates
him. Nietzsche believes that the will to truth has now reached a point that it has come to a
consciousness of itself “as a problem,” and it is precisely this problem that gives meaning
to our lives as it pushes us to free ourselves from dogmas and evolve beyond ourselves.
Nietzsche never gives the answer to “the value of truth” directly; although he raises the
question on several occasions. It seems that, for him, truth is invaluable, because it can
transform the humanity through affirmation of life, with all that we do or do not know
about it. It is only in affirmation of what one does not know that one ventures forth to
discover, create and evolve. However, truth can be painful, because transitioning is not
easy, and it has nothing in common with the metaphysical refuge that religions and
transcendental ideologies provide. Nietzsche realises that metaphysics stems from “the
103 Nietzsche, Gay Science (Cambridge University Press) Sec 3.24
78
philosophers’ alignment with the populace” their “failure to demarcate and make
prominent the difference of the philosopher’s soul.”104 In this fashion, he exposes the
thinkers preceding him and sets the sight for his genealogical evaluation of morality that
does away with metaphysics, in its “revaluation of all values”. Nietzsche’s critique of
morality may raise the question as to whether revaluation somehow denotes devaluation
of core human values, such as truth seeking, courage, and honesty. Indeed this has never
been Nietzsche’s intention, but what he truly wishes for human beings is for one to
ascribe to such values not from a sense of duty, in a superficial manner, but to do so
because one wants to from flesh and bone; one no longer has to think about acting out of
conscious creation, one is unconsciously conscious, but this calls for a brave act of self
overcoming. Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo, “that is my formula for an act of ultimate
self-examination by mankind which in me has become flesh and genius. My lot is that I
must be the first decent human being, that I know myself to be in opposition against
mendaciousness of millennia.”105 The mendaciousness of millennia, for Nietzsche, is
humans’ tendency to simplify life through their conjecture, to avoid seeking of
knowledge gained through observation and examination of the natural world. Such
knowledge, being falsifiable, raises fear in those who seek a static view of human life,
characterised by immortality of the soul and free from uncertainty. Thus, Nietzsche
explores both realms in exposing the nature of truth.
104 Ibid Laurence Lambert P. 25
105 Ibid Ecce Homo
79
Science vs. Metaphysics concerning “truth”
It is worth noting that not all Nietzsche scholars agree on how free from
metaphysical conjectures his philosophy has been. At times, certain conceptions in
Nietzsche’s thought have been deemed questionable as indicating possible metaphysical
grounds. This section deals with such criticisms by attempting to refute the presence of
metaphysical assumptions in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Thus we may begin investigation
into Nietzsche’s ideas on science and metaphysics, with a view to some of his most
controversial ideas, such as the “eternal recurrence of the same” and the Dionysian,
before we move on to presenting his take on separation of the noumenal and phenomenal
realm. In the end, these will aid us in appreciating Nietzsche’s concept of the “will to
power” and his critique of morality.
Furthermore, in discussing these controversial aspects of Nietzsche’s thoughts it is
hoped to stress the depth of his scientific and mathematical enquiry into the nature of
reality which underly his poetic expressions. For Nietzsche, it is meaningless to separate
the arts and philosophy from science, as he recognises the significance of appreciating the
association between natural science and social science in the absence of God and
metaphysics. Yet, some have mistaken his poetic articulations for metaphysical
conjectures. Needless to say, there is, indeed, a degree of speculation and guesswork in
his thoughts. However, one may note resonance of scientific notions in these speculations
that cannot be ignored. Moreover, Nietzsche does not express his thoughts as anything
more than ideas and hypotheses. Unlike Kant he does not attempt to rationalise his
speculations through reason, rather he prefers to acknowledge that humans do not have
the answer to all the fundamental questions of existence and as such he allows his ideas
80
to remain open to exploration. Nietzsche also realises that art is one of the best tools
through which humans express their wonder at nature; and that artistic expressions could
perhaps alleviate the burden of offsetting the gap between natural science and moral
philosophy, in the absence of metaphysics and the idea of God. Thus, the following
sections explores Nietzsche’s take on some of the profoundest concepts that constitute the
grounds of his philosophy, signifying a concoction of poetic, mathematical and scientific
understanding of nature.
Eternal recurrence of the same:
Perhaps, alongside Nietzsche’s notion of the “Dionysian”, eternal recurrence is
one of the most controversial aspects of his thoughts. Walter Kaufman calls it “the crown
of Nietzsche’s philosophy,” going hand in hand with the “will to power” to give rise to
the “overman”106. However, some have viewed the concept of eternal return in
metaphysical terms, for example, in a section entitled “The End of Metaphysics”,
Heidegger in his book on Nietzsche, attempts to explain Nietzsche’s philosophy as
“metaphysics of subjectivity”. He notes “In order to grasp Nietzsche’s philosophy as
metaphysics and to circumscribe its place in the history of metaphysics, it is not enough
to explain historiologically, a few of his fundamental concepts as being ‘metaphysical’.
We must grasp Nietzsche’s philosophy as the metaphysics of subjectivity.” For Heidegger,
Nietzsche’s “Metaphysics”, as well as “the essential ground of ‘classical nihilism’ may
now be more clearly delineated as a metaphysics of the absolute subjectivity of will to
power,” remarking that his subjectivity, “is absolute as subjectivity of the body; that is, of
106 Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist P 121
81
drives and affects; that is to say, of the will to power.”107 As such, for Heidegger since
Nietzsche’s doctrine of the eternal return cannot be understood in mechanistic terms,
within the realm of classical science, the only other option that remains is to view it in a
metaphysical vein. However, criticism may apply to Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche; as
he does not seem to differentiate between Nietzsche’s hypothetical engagement with
fundamental questions of nature and the tradition of metaphysics, which aimed to
rationalise groundless conjectures in observing the nature of reality. In addition, it is
worth noting resonances between some Nietzschean speculations, and theoretical
investigations of modern science that one would find hard to explain within the
mechanistic realm of classical science. Thus, the objective of this discussion is to shed
light on the fact that the realm of metaphysics is not necessarily the only alternative to
classical science; rather one has to allow for the possibility of perceiving some aspects of
nature in terms of a non-classical world-view. One may then argue that Heidegger’s
remark, in referring to Nietzsche’s philosophy as metaphysics of subjectivity, is a
misreading of Nietzsche’s non-classical observation of nature. For example with regards
to the eternal recurrence, and the idea that time repeats itself, certain theories of modern
physics may leave room for such speculation; such as Roger Penrose’s model108, which
describes the universe before the big bang and the cyclical nature of time, as we well as
other theoretical accounts of the nature of time and space, in a similar vein.
107 Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, (Harper & Row, 1979) p.147
108 This theory is in progress and is not mentioned in Roger Penrose’s works prior to this. Penrose’slecture on this model can be accessed onhttp://www.newton.ac.uk/webseminars/pg+ws/2005/gmr/gmrw04/1107/penrose/
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Nevertheless, one may view Nietzsche’s notion of the eternal return in two
dimensions: one is its actual likelihood in scientific terms; but rather most importantly,
for his moral philosophy, is the consequences of eternal return for the human experience
that matters. With regards to the cosmological probability of the eternal return (or the
eternal recurrence of the same), it is worth noting that there are different theories on the
origin of the universe, most of which entail the idea of the big bang. However, few
contend with the faith of the universe prior to the big bang. Some theoretical attempts to
present a model of universe and the nature of time and space do seem to entail a cyclical
perception of time. For example, Roger Penrose’s hypothesis in engaging with the subject
seems to echo Nietzsche’s conception of the eternal return. The model suggests that the
universe starts at a state of Zero and expands, initially, going through a period of rapid
inflation, followed by steady expansion at slower pace. The conventional theory of the
big bang states that the universe, eventually, faces a collapse – “the big crunch”, where
space-time falls back into the same state of zero, as it had been at the moment of the big
bang. Penrose, while agreeing to the likelihood of the universe ending at a state of zero,
contends that, rather than “shrinking”, the universe will continue to expand until all
matter evaporates, leaving an unconstrained “final space-time singularity (as occurs
inside black holes)”. Black holes are thought to have a small amount of radiation,
although since they are extremely cold in comparison to the surrounding environment
these radiations are negligible. However, when the entire universe has evaporated and
decayed, the extremely minute remainder of space (characterised by plank scale), will
cool down to a degree that even the smallest radiation will give rise to a new big bang.
Furthermore, these speculations suggest that all the information from the previous
83
universe is lost and will not be transferred to this new universe. Penrose explains that the
theory is essentially based on the second law of thermodynamic109; he writes, “It is
normally assumed that life had to arise via complicated evolutionary processes, and these
processes required particular conditions, and particular physical laws, including the
Second Law. The Second Law was certainly a crucial part of evolution, in the way that
our particular form of life actually came about. But the very action of this Second Law
tells us that however special the universe may be now, with life existing in it, it must have
been far more special at an earlier stage in which life was not present. From a purely
anthropic point of view, this earlier far more special phase was not needed; it would have
been much more likely that our present ‘improbable’ stage came about simply by chance,
rather than coming about via an earlier even more improbable stage. When the Second
Law is a crucial component, there is always a far more probable set of initial conditions
that would lead to this same state of affairs, namely one in which the Second Law was
violated prior to the situation now!” 110 In fact even to say that time restarts would not
even have a meaning without our perception of the phenomenon of entropy. Stephen
Hawking writes, “our subjective sense of the direction of time, the psychological arrow
of time, is therefore determined within our brain by the thermodynamic arrow of time.
Just as a computer, we must remember things in the order in which entropy increases.
This makes the second law of thermodynamics almost trivial. Disorder increases with
time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases.”111
109 The Second Law of thermodynamic describes the phenomenon of entropy. It states that measure ofdisorder in an isolated system which is not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching amaximum value at equilibrium
110 Roger Penrose, Mathematical Institute, Oxford
111 Stephen Hawking, A brief history of time, (The arrow of time) P 147
84
Now some may suggest that the notion of the eternal recurrence gives a
deterministic sense of the world, thus limiting the possibility of human freedom, which
Kant tried to establish for practical reasons. Although, even if we assumed the repeating
nature of time to be true, we would not remember our previous experience of the same
life; this by itself does not follow any implications for human freedom.
Nevertheless, Nietzsche, in fact, rejected the notion of free will, as understood in
the tradition of metaphysics – the discussion of which we will attend to, in the context of
the Dionysian and chaos. However, from a Nietzschean perspective, the significance of
eternal return for human experience is to think of its possibility as a stimulus; in that it
may give rise to the breeding of a new kind of human, with new values. As Kaufman
notes for Nietzsche, a doctrine was required, “strong enough to have the effect of
breeding: strengthening the strong, paralysing and breaking the world weary”112. Hence,
the notion is, in a way, a response to the idea of “the after world”, and the metaphysical
assumption of punishment and reward in life after death. Nietzsche realised that the entire
conception of morality was entwined with this supposition, which led to the degradation
of humans’ experience of material life. He therefore sought to establish radical grounds
for a new conception of material life as, not only the only life that there is, but also as one
that will eternally recur in the exact same way. In so doing he challenged men to live
through every moment, with the conscious rumination, that it would recur, uncountable
number of times.
112 Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist P.325
85
Ultimately the doctrine of eternal recurrence, for Nietzsche, regardless of its
cosmological probability – is a symbolic notion, and a means of self evaluation for the
individual, to test how well he knows himself. It is a standard by which man will be able
to recognise how successful he has been in creating such formidable affirmative
perception of life, that he would be willing to live precisely that same life many times
over again. For Nietzsche such realisation is more powerful than any moral preaching, it
is a standard by which he challenges the nay saying individual, who seeks refuge in a
world other than the present one. He refutes the idea of a life of punishment and reward
after death, while contending that this very life that we live today will eternally recur in
the exact same way, thus he defies the weak and the feeble who are unable to stand life as
it is, unless by hoping for kingdom, power, and glory in another life. Such individuals,
who do not take an active role in the society, nor integrate and contribute to enhancing
the human experience and the limits of human potential, will be crushed by the doctrine
of eternal return. In seeking reward in another world they seek to draw nearer to a
delusionary image of God, hence drawing farther from their other humans. However, the
strong and prudent individuals would find the idea of eternal return, in the least, an
incentive to realise their fullest potential; still, even “if they had attained this state
already, the doctrine would merely coincide with their own Dionysian faith.”113 Thus
Nietzsche conception of the eternal return is a true celebration the Dionysian life.
113 Ibid
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The Dionysian:
The concept of the Dionysian is another one of Nietzsche’s controversial ideas
that has been viewed in a metaphysical vein. Once more, we confront Heidegger’s
reading of Nietzsche, where he notes, “That Nietzsche interpreted and experienced his
most abysmal thoughts in terms of the Dionysian only speaks for the fact that he still
thought it metaphysically, and had to think it solely in this way. Yet it says nothing
against the fact that this most abysmal thought conceals something unthought, something
which at the same time remains a sealed door to metaphysical thinking.”114 In response to
such critiques of Nietzsche, it may seem excessive if not unreasonable, attempting to
preserve his thoughts’ abstractions, by linking them to scientific and mathematical
hypotheses that were not yet established in his time. However we may have reason to
consider it a worthwhile attempt, to read Nietzsche in light of the resonance of his ideas
with these new concepts; that could undermine the metaphysical readings of his works.
Although, one may note that the precept of metaphysics, itself, could be interpreted in
different ways contingent on the context. In the framework of this thesis, our critique of
metaphysics refers to the notion of God and the supernatural. As such, one may argue that
Heidegger’s perception of the Dionysian as a metaphysical concept does not appear to be
sensible.
In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche introduces the contrast between the Dionysian
and the Apollonian as a metaphoric expression of the ancient Greeks’ tragic art. However,
one may not fail to note that, for Nietzsche, the writing of the Birth of Tragedy was a
means of exploring a problem other than that of Art; rather, in this work Nietzsche
114 Ibid P.233
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explores the “Problem of Science”115. What brings this “problem” to his focus is the
realisation that science undermines the notion of God, leaving morality in disparity;
hence, in drawing upon art, Nietzsche seeks to reconcile man with his core values. Art,
for Nietzsche, is a means of expressing a new mode of morality beyond good and evil,
where the paradox and diversity of all forms of life is celebrated with a perspectival
outlook on life. For Nietzsche there is no such thing as an ideal form of life. While
expressing this in his account Dionysus vis a vis Apollo; Nietzsche identifies himself
with the Dionysian, yet the two appear to be two expressions of the same reality.
Perhaps the most important aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy is that far from
expressing a nihilistic view of life, it is an affirmative celebration of its multiplicity. We
note this in his account of Apollo and Dionysus, neither of whom portray a pessimistic
character; even though, tragedy arises from their contradiction. The Apollonian visual art,
and the Dionysian art of music, signify two modes of being, or two “drives” of nature as
the “artistic worlds of dream and of intoxication.”116 Tragedy is the point of reunification
of Apollo and Dionysus and a life affirmative state. Deleuze notes that, for the mature
Nietzsche, in his self criticism, looking back at The Birth of Tragedy, the true opposition
is not between Apollo and Dionysus, but between those two forces and Socrates on the
one hand and Christianity on the other. While Socrates has a bit of both Apollo and
Dionysus in him, Christianity has none. What Socrates and Christianity have in common,
however, is that they are both nay sayers to life. This is while Apollo and Dionysus are
both affirmative accounts of life in two entirely different forms. Appolo and Dionysus do
115 Nietzsche, Birth of tragedy, Attempt at a self-criticism, (University Press 2008) Sec.1
116 Ibid Sec.1
88
not require any justification for life, while Socrates and Christianity do so in seeking
validation for human suffering. “For Christianity,” Deleuze points out, “the fact of
suffering in life means primarily that life is not just, that it is even essentially unjust, that
it pays for an essential injustice by suffering, it is blameworthy because it suffers. The
result of this is that life must be justified, that is to say redeemed of its injustice or
saved.”117 For Walter Kaufmann the concept of the Dionysian in Nietzsche’s thoughts is a
way for him to get around the problem of nihilism, which Nietzsche finds to be a result of
both a theological view of the world, as well as, an atheistic perception. Kaufmann notes
that, “to escape nihilism – which seems involved both in asserting the existence of God
and thus robbing this world of ultimate significance, and also in denying God and thus
robbing everything of meaning and value – that is Nietzsche’s greatest and most
persistent problem”118. He, therefore, believes that for Nietzsche the way around this
problem was not “more seriousness” in the sense that some “existentialists”119 would put
it, but that in the language of Zarathustra he aims to “slay the spirit of gravity”, believing
only in “a God who could dance.” The dancing god for Nietzsche is Dionysus. For
Kaufmann, as yet, such an expression leaves the “question of supernaturalism”. He then
goes on to look at the problem from a different angle, and considers Nietzsche’s
“experimental attitude”, which of course he sees in a different light than that of
“naturalism”, in its mechanistic sense. This line of reasoning places Kaufmann at a point
of doubt towards Nietzsche’s exempt from metaphysics, which was also reflected in
Heidegger’s writing.
117 Ibid P 15
118 Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist p. 101
119 Ibid Walter Kaufman refers to Max Scheler
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Kaufman initially states the formal meaning of the term naturalism as “a view
which simply limits itself to what is natural or normal in its explanations, as against
appeal to what transcends nature as a whole, or is in a way supernatural or mystical”120.
He describes Nietzsche’s real concern as to whether naturalistic values may appropriately
replace the traditional moral values, although in his experiment Nietzsche does away with
the notion of a creator. For Kaufmann “Nietzsche’s inquiry as to whether values could be
maintained without supernatural sanctions was based on his ‘existential’ questioning of
God’s existence: and because he really questioned it...”121 It is essentially in this sense
that Nietzsche’s ideas differ from Kant, as he questions with a real intention to deal with
the consequences; whatever the answer may have been. Yet, the question may still remain
as to whether Nietzsche succeeded in resolving his existential enquiry, without the aid of
metaphysics. Neither Heidegger nor Kaufmann appear to share this view. Heidegger
states clearly that Nietzsche’s notion of the Dionysian, akin to his conception of the
eternal recurrence of the same, was indicative of his underlying metaphysical belief.
Perhaps Heidegger saw the Dionysian as Nietzsche’s “hidden caves” for the metaphysical
principal of his philosophy. Kaufmann, however, remains doubtful, stating that Nietzsche
does not really answer the question of God’s existence, but notes that Nietzsche chooses
to carry out his “experiment”, in devaluation of all values, without pledge to divine since
for him “this experiment does not require the premise that God does not exist. It demands
no more than we agree not to invoke any gods to cut the discussion short”122.
120 Ibid P. 128
121 Ibid
122 Ibid 102
90
For Kaufman therefore the world as an artistic phenomenon is Nietzsche’s
ultimate view of the world. Indeed Nietzsche does assert in his Birth of Tragedy that
“only as an aesthetic phenomenon are life and the world justified eternally”123. However
for Kaufman this assertion is still misleading. If the universe is a work of art, then who is
creating it? Furthermore this appears to echo the words of Kant, who also saw the world
as an aesthetic phenomenon created by a higher power. For Kant, this explanation led to
the realisation of the transcendental “thing in itself”. He asserted that although the divine
creator may have had no purpose in creating the world except for that of the his own
artistic pleasure, we must live our life with purpose and according to the moral law. Thus,
as we previously noted, he went on as far as seeking the source of morality in the
aesthetic beauty of natural phenomena.
In this comparison it may seem inevitable to pose the question as to whether
Nietzsche’s poetic expression of TheBirth of Tragedy and his account of the Dionysian
was also a metaphysical conjecture. Below, attempt has been made to provide an answer
to this question, which differs from the two accounts given by Heidegger and Kaufmann.
The argument presented here begs rethinking of the metaphysical interpretation of
Nietzsche’s philosophy, contending that the Dionysian and the Apollonian are poetic
expressions of much deeper precepts. Nietzsche in his experiment, in seeking the answer
to the existential question of God, did, in fact, refute the notion of God as a conjecture.
One may contend that Nietzsche’s poetic expression of the Dionysian seems to resemble
a mathematical/scientific model of the natural world, as presented in what we would
perceive, in modern physics, as a non-classical world-view presented as hypotheses that
123 Ibid Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 5, 24
91
describe the realm of subatomic phenomena. This idea calls for a degree of speculation;
although it may seem more readily agreeable to contend that a fine line separates the
poetic expressions, from mathematical thinking. One way of looking at the Dionysian in
Nietzsche’s thought, which undermines its metaphysical implications, is that Nietzsche
thinks that life on its most fundamental level is made up of quanta of power that struggle
with each other in a state of flux (this state of “flux” could be thought of, in terms of
uncertainty and chaos). In the process of their struggle, these forces give rise to diverse
“forms” of life, as we perceive in our world of macroscopic phenomena.
The “solid” forms of life that we perceive in a classical state, for Nietzsche are
the Apollonian representation; while the Dionysian represents a different “form” which is
not solid and cannot be perceived in terms of its shape, thus being characterised in terms
of chaos and a state of flux. As opposed to the Kantian notion of the thing in itself, this
idea does not refer to a transcendental nature of phenomena beyond that which meets the
naked eye. Rather, the Dionysian is merely the other form of to the Apollonian; in a sense
one might say that it is a formless form of the same thing, and not beyond and above it, in
a transcendental way. Thus Apollo and Dionysus are different aspects of one and the
same reality. If Dionysus is the underlying vibrating energy of life – perhaps akin to the
vibrating strings described in String Theory, Apollo is the form or shape of “classical”
reality. The clash of the two is the moment of “collapse” of energy into matter, when new
matter forms are born. However while these two modes of existences are in a constant
process of formation and deformation, neither refutes, nor transcends, the other; rather
they compose a complementarity of formed and formless states of the same substance.
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This is essentially no different from the transformation of matter and energy into
each other and it does not indicate any supernatural aspect to Nietzsche’s view of life. For
Nietzsche art is the dynamic process of life; where Dionysus is in a state of disorder and
flux; while Apollo has shape and order; which is why Nietzsche characterises the
Dionysian state with music and the Apollonian with visual arts. In his book, The
Invention of Dionysus, James Porter notes Apollo and Dionysus as being fundamentally
the same.124 Kaufmann, while holding a similar view, feels that Nietzsche, in fact,
“favours Apollo”125 given that Apollo represents the form of life that we experience as a
place of form and order. He points out that Nietzsche’s love for Apollo is due to the
painful process through which it has found form and order, and that his love for the
Dionysus is due to its potential to give birth to ever more complex forms of life. Thus
Nietzsche characterises the moment of transformation from chaos to order as “the birth of
tragedy”.
The birth signifies the pain of self overcoming and taking form, however it is also
tragic because once a life form has been born it solidifies; thus it no longer enjoys the
suppleness of the Dionysian form, with the potential to self overcoming and recreating
itself. Nevertheless Nietzsche celebrates this tragic pain; since as humans we have
evolved beyond other beings and here we stand, today, able to question, observe and
influence the conditions of our own lives. What Nietzsche celebrates in man is his ability
to rediscover his Dionysian character and reinvent himself.
124 James Porter. The Invention of Dionysus, (Stanford University Press 2000) P 99
125 Ibid Walter Kaufmann, P.128
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Nietzsche hopes to instigate a new perception of Dionysus that may enhance the
humans’ experience of life. In this image, if Dionysus were a dream state, of complete
disorder; Apollo is a dream interpreter that brings Dionysus back to life126. What
Nietzsche praises in the Dionysian man is that he contains within him all that he needs to
enable him reinvent himself, the dream and the ability to interpret, form and formless at
the same time. He realises that this is an ability that all humans possess; yet few become
of aware of it and engage in their own co-creation with nature. To become aware of the
Dionysian within, is to revive the chaos in oneself; hence Nietzsche’s assertion that “one
must have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star”127. For Nietzsche, existence,
characterised by chaos, is no longer to be judged and requires no justification or reason.
The world is a joyful celebration of the tragic thought, where one may rejoice in the pain
of creation, as a mother rejoices in the pain of giving birth to a child. For the Dionysian
man, to will, is to create; and to “think is to send out a dice throw”; allowing a dream to
be interpreted. It has to be noted that Nietzsche’s account of the Dionysian and the
Apollonian, is not to be confused with the classical dualistic separation of the real and
apparent world; but these are two states of the same reality: one is the form abstracted
from the flux of the other. One may think of them as the analogy between ice and water.
David Bohm explains, “not only is everything changing, but all is flux. That is to say that
what is, is the process of becoming itself, while all object, events, enteritis, conditions,
structures, etc. are forms that can be abstracted from this process.”128
126 Ibid, Birth of Tragedy, S 10
127 Ibid Thus spoke Zarathustra
128 David Bohm. Wholeness and the implicate order, (Routledge, 2002) p. 61
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The real and the apparent world:
The idea, that the world as we know with our sensory organs is not the real world,
and as was explained in the last chapter, was one that Kant and many other classical
thinkers ascribed to. Nietzsche, however, was opposed to the idea and refuted it, referring
to Kant’s idea of “the thing in itself”, as meaningless. Kevin Hill notes that, “Nietzsche’s
first objection is that the concept of the thing-in-itself is nothing more than the concept of
sheer thing-hood coupled with the concept of mind independence. Therefore it is neither
unknowable nor very interesting.”129 For Kant what we saw in the material world of
phenomena was not real, but he thought that the thing in itself belonged to the realm of
noumena, which we cannot have access. The reason Nietzsche gave for refuting the
notion has mainly to do with his perspectivism and the fact that nothing can be thought of
as an individual in its entirety, because every individual, while existing as an independent
entity, is also a plurality in constant becoming and flux. Thus a given entity, as an
integrated whole finds meaning with respect to the outer world, as well as with respect to
its internal fractions, which are never static, but always changing. Hill notes that in his
mature phase, Nietzsche views unities like organisms as analogous to social unities;
pointing out that, “Goethe says that the organism appears to us as a unity, to which
Nietzsche adds that this is because we impose organic form on an experienced plurality.
The ‘organism [does] not belong to the thing in itself. The organism is form. If we
abstract away the form it is a multiplicity…organism as a product of our organization.”130
129 Kevin R. Hill Nietzsche’s CritiquesThe Kantian foundation of his thoughts, Oxford University Press2003, P 95
130 Ibid P 89
95
Nietzsche is in fact concerned about the implications of this separation of the real and the
apparent world as an affinity with the religious conceptions of the unreality of the world,
while exposing the incoherence involved in the very idea of the thing in itself. He rejects
Kant's account of the “phenomenality of causality”. Causality for Nietzsche is a false
error, in that we have never had a factual reason for it, rather that we have based it on our
“inner facts”. Observing ourselves as the “causal agents in the act of willing” we have
therefore drawn the conclusion that we have been “catching causality in the act”. We take
it for granted that the thought is the caused effect of the ego. These “inner facts” have
throughout the centuries secured the notion of causality as a given fact and “empiricism”.
For those approaching the notion of causality from a theistic view this was a
justification of God. Nietzsche calls this a “misuse” of the empiricism, on the basis of
which, we ourselves, had created a world of cause and effect. In other words we
ourselves also created the notion of God as the final cause. Indeed even in speaking of the
thing itself, Nietzsche observes that man always discovered in things only “that which he
had put into them;” for him, “The ‘thing’ is merely a reflection of belief in the ego as
cause.”131 He writes, “even your atom, messieurs mechanists and physicists, how much
rudimentary psychology, still remains in your atom! – To say nothing of ‘the thing itself’
that horrendum pudendum (ugly shameful part) of the metaphysicians! And made this
measure of reality and called God!”132 In a sense the discussion of the real and apparent
world, once again, can be traced in the idea of the Dionysian and the Apollonian that
seems to convey the message that: Apollo is in fact nothing but the Dionysius that has
131 Ibid, Twilight of Idols, The great errors
132 Ibid
96
found a form and had been abstracted from a state of flux and instability. However, even
when de-cohered into the classical state, phenomena maintain strong correlation and can
only be perceived with respect to one another; as opposed to an underlying thing in itself.
All of reality is, therefore, relative and perspectival. Thus, in refuting the notion of the
thing in itself, Nietzsche dispenses with the idea of God, and identifies himself with an
atheistic world-view. In this view the will is no longer a moving factor and therefore no
longer explains anything; in other words, as Grimm notes, “it merely accompanies
events, it can also be absent,” hence why for Nietzsche the idea of the will as “motive”, is
yet “another error”.133 The implications of this notion for mechanistic thinkers who
sought to pose freedom on the act of willing, is grave. The Nietzschean world-view
undermines the traditional understanding of moral philosophy, grounded on the
justification of free will. He realises that this is a mere invention of humans, intended to
facilitate control and allow them to judge and be held responsible for their actions. In
search for a new mode of values, beyond good and evil, Nietzsche suggests that we must
endeavour to appreciate the true nature of reality, notwithstanding the complexity of
relative correlations among all of its elements.
Furthermore, Nietzsche observes phenomena as individuals in plurality, within an
evolutionary context, whereby not only all phenomena are correlated at one point in time
and space but that they also comprise fractions of an evolutionary process through time
and space. Nietzsche confronts the notion of God as a perfect being, who has designed a
perfect universe. Instead, he takes side with the theory of evolution, in a debate that
continues to date, namely the idea of intelligent design versus the theory of evolution.
133 Ibid Grimm p. 59
97
Whereas the former describes the universe as a perfect creation of an intelligent mind, the
latter appears to portray a contrary of view of nature where phenomena evolve
accidentally and uneconomically. Kant’s transcendental philosophy clearly positions him
as an advocate of the design argument. Nietzsche, however, sees the way of nature as
wasteful and blind. As Grimm notes, Kant had declared in his essay on history, that
“nature does nothing superfluous and is, in the use of means for her purposes [zwecke],
not squandering,” in responses which, Nietzsche writes, “the way of nature seems
squandering...it proceeds...wastefully”134. In that sense Nietzsche’s world-view appears to
be in accord with the Darwinian theory of evolution through natural selection, whereby
all living phenomena have evolved in attempt at continuous self-replication. However
due to occurrence of error and accidents, from one generation to other, the process yields
asymmetry, and gives rise to diversity. Nevertheless, while accepting the theory in
principle Nietzsche was also concerned about the gap that it created in the belief system
of the individuals who had been hardened in their reliance on God and the supernatural.
While previously such conviction had been the source morality in human society, the
evolutionary perspective cast a shadow of doubt on human moral life. Thus, as Kaufmann
notes, Nietzsche “was not prepared to reject the new doctrine either on fundamentalist or
pragmatic grounds, any more than Kant had rejected Hume’s fatal attack on ideas he had
rejected.” Kaufman states that, “Nietzsche was aroused from his dogmatic slumber by
Darwin, as Kant had been by Hume a century earlier; and again it was a question of
creating a new picture of man in reply to the ‘truth but deadly’ nihilism from beyond the
134 Ibid P. 174
98
Channel.”135 Nietzsche observed that the individuals integrated the implications of
science for moral philosophy at a much slower pace than that the findings of science
transformed our model of reality. This for him was a real point of concern, seeing that it
ran the risk of driving many generations to war, hostility and pessimism. Kaufmann
further notes that, “Nietzsche accepted Darwin’s doctrine concerning the lack of any
cardinal distinction between man and animals as incontrovertible empirical fact and tried
to counter this ‘deadly’ gospel”, asserting that “man can rise above the beasts”; yet he
pursued “a naturalistic value theory and a sanction that would not be a poor substitute for
God”136 In rising above the Darwinian nightmare, Nietzsche arrives at the notion of the
will to power.
The will to power
Posing the notion of “the will to power”, in response to Darwin’s model of natural
selection, may at first appear to be a contradictory reading of this theory. However,
Nietzsche embarks upon his ingenious account of “power”, initially by casting doubt on
the completeness of Darwin’s theory, in describing the process of evolution. In Twilight of
idols he writes, “As regards the celebrated ‘struggle for life’, it seems to me, for the
present, to have been rather asserted, than proved. It does occur but as the exception; the
general aspects of life, is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth, luxury, even absurd
prodigality – where there is struggle – it is struggle for power...” While, as afore
135 Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist P.167
136 Ibid p.157
99
mentioned, Nietzsche agrees with the theory of natural selection, in principle; what he
attempts to point out, here, is the dynamism of nature and that survival alone may not
account for its relentless inclination to change and becoming. Instead, he observes “the
will to power” as a drive that stands facing the will to survival; given that once their
security has been preserved phenomena do not remain stagnant, rather they continuously
seek to overcome their surrounding environment.
Nevertheless, Nietzsche’s account of power does not suggest, either the will to
power, or the attempt for survival, alone, to be the driving force of evolution. Rather, he
seems to suggest that these two forces are in constant struggle, which leads to stability
and instability; formation and deformation, and integration and disintegration of natural
phenomena, simultaneously. Thus the true nature of being is one of becoming, while the
process of becoming is itself a compilation of instants of being. When we look closely at
these states of being, they seem chaotic and unstable, yet as integrated collection of
chaotic states, natural phenomena appear to reach long-lasting states of permanence and
strength as single units and functional integrated systems.
These accounts are not provided in a systematic approach in Nietzsche’s works,
however. Rather they may be retrieved from his marriage of science and art, and his
poetic expression of the Dionysian and the Apollonian, where it appears that not only he
acknowledges the presence of all such contradictory forces, but he also praises all of
them, pointing out the value of each in their contribution to the process of change and
becoming in nature. While the Dionysian art is the agent of instability and change and
becoming, the Apollonian represents the will to stability, and formation. Nietzsche seems
to suggest that, each of these two tendencies are by themselves neutral; they are neither
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good nor bad, neither useful nor useless, neither weak nor strong. They are merely life’s
features, free from judgement, the Dionysian and the Apollonian tendency is merely to
remain in existence. However, a third attribute of nature, namely the will to power,
throws the Dionysian and Apollonian states off balance. Therefore, the struggle between
the will to power and the will to survival meet the Apollonian and the Dionysian traits of
nature and lead to its constant evolution and self overcoming in a struggle between
stability and change. The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that our understanding of
nature has to be free from judgement; hence embracing its plurality. Unlike Kant,
Nietzsche does not seek a criterion for beauty, nor does he suggest any aspect of nature as
good in itself. “Good” or “bad” only find meaning in relative terms.
For one thing, while he identifies himself as a Dionysian; he acknowledges the
value of the Apollonian man; as one merely finds meaning with the other; not in isolation.
In accentuating that one’s perception of the driving forces of nature may linger free from
judgement, he insinuates them as intoxications. Thus, in characterising various art forms,
he refers to the artist as Apollonian or Dionysian intoxicated, or one who is intoxicated by
the will to power. Indeed this once again undermines the notion of “free will” that merely
seeks to contain the human behaviour and control the society. It is another way of saying
that our “genes” together with other environmental factors drive our behaviour. Although,
Nietzsche discusses these notions in the context of the arts, the case may simply be
extended to all other facets of human life in general and moral judgement in particular.
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In giving some examples of these concepts, Nietzsche refers to the painter and the
sculptor as the Apollonian intoxicated, while the Dionysian man is the musician, the poet
and the seeker; they represent a nonfigurative state of “collective arousal and discharging
of the emotions”137. The will to power, however, epitomizes the architect; given that, “the
most powerful men have always influenced the architect: the architect has always been
influenced by power”; hence, he notes, “the highest feeling of power and security find
expressions in that which disdains to please; which is slow to answer; which is conscious
of no witnesses around; which lives oblivious of the existence of any opposition; which
reposes in itself, fatalistic, a law among laws: that is what speaks of itself in the form of
grand style.”138
It has to be noted that while Nietzsche acknowledges all aspects of nature to be
extremely interdependent, such that one without the other is meaningless, the Dionysian
aspect for him stands out, which is what characterises his entire philosophy. The reason
for this is that although the nature of all phenomena signifies a struggle between stability
and chaos, this very struggle denotes the restlessness of nature. As such, formation of
every new unit of existence entails the deformation of a previous environment, of which,
the elements of this new “body” have been a part. In a sense it seems that Nietzsche’s
Dionysian echoes the cosmic vibration of energy at the most basic level of existence, akin
to that which is today denoted in string theory. According to this picture, all natural
phenomena that we observe are nothing but a signature of vibrating strings at the
subatomic level. Physicist Brian Green writes, “Each elementary particle is composed of
137 Ibid
138 Ibid, Twilight of idols, 11
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a string – that is, each particle is a single string – and all strings are absolutely
identical”139. Indeed, such statements echo Nietzsche’s notion of power quanta, as
discrete, separate entities. Furthermore Nietzsche notes that quanta of power “differ from
one another only quantitatively”140. This also resonates with the idea of spin, in
elementary particles, which is what characterises a given particle according to its mode of
vibration, hence Green’s explication that, “Differences between the particles arise
because their respective strings undergo different resonant vibrational patterns. What
appear to be different elementary particles are actually different ‘notes’ on a fundamental
string. The universe – being composed of an enormous number of these vibrating strings
– is akin to a cosmic symphony”141.
A critique of morality
Nietzsche’s revaluations of values, his perception of truth, and his ideas of the
eternal return, the Dionysian, and the will to power, ultimately aspire to arrive at a new
value system in a naturalistic vein, hence his opposition with the notion of God and
transcendental conjectures. His objective could, essentially, be summarised in two terms
1- Eradication of morality as a prescriptive system lending itself to the creation of
normative values, commonly rooted in metaphysics 2- Setting a Dionysian benchmark for
the overman, hence a standard with no boundaries.
The following accounts offer reflections on these Nietzschean objectives, further
139 Brian Green, The Elegant Universe (Vintage 2005) P 146
140 Ibid Grimm p.3
141 Ibid, Green
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explicating his opposition to descriptive and normative morality and the alternative views
that he puts forward.
Prescriptive morality:
Nietzsche’s primary goal was to demolish morality in a prescriptive and
normative sense. Prescriptivism in morality refers to the belief that certain instructions
can be presumed, to which humans ought to adhere, in order to lead a morally acceptable
life. Such presumptions hold certain values to be morally good, in themselves, based on a
priori metaphysical conjectures, as opposed to assessing those with respect to their
context in time and space. As it was noted in the previous chapter Kant shared this
attitude with many preceding moral philosophers, such as Plato hence Nietzsche’s
objection to both for holding back generations of thinkers, as they also searched for the
“ideal” moral system, thus asking the wrong question; seeing that the ideal can only be
perceived as the ideal in relative terms, and not as the good in itself.
Nietzsche’s reason for rejecting prescriptive morality is grounded in his refutation
of the idea of free will. The prescriptive perception of morality not only presumes that
certain ideals are morally good in themselves, it also presumes that human beings are free
to abide by these values; thus should they fail to do so they will have to be punished and
in abiding by them they may be rewarded for their virtue. However Nietzsche notes that
in declining the idea of God one also dispenses with the notion of free will; he writes,
“formerly man was presented with ‘free will’ as a dowry from a higher order: today we
have taken even will away from him in the sense that will may no longer be understood
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as a faculty.”142 The conception of free will to Nietzsche is not liberating to man’s true
potential, rather it “serves to designate a resultant, a kind of individual reaction which
necessarily follows a host of partly congruous stimuli”.143
Needless to say, Nietzsche remains concerned about human civilisation’s reaction
to the loss of that stability that was provided by morality; in short; to what Nietzsche
refers to as the “death of God”. Yet he sees this as a challenge in self overcoming,
observing that, previously, “Men were thought of as ‘free’ so that they could become
guilty: consequently, every action had to be thought of as willed, the origin of every
action lying in the consciousness.”144 Nietzsche exposes the reason why the notion of free
will was developed in the first place, as he states that “the moral idea of ‘ought’,
originates from the very material idea of ‘owe’” and “punishment developed as a
retaliation, absolutely independently of any preliminary hypothesis of the freedom or
determination of the will”145. He points out that this understanding was needed in order to
make the “much more primitive distinctions of ‘intentional’, ‘negligent’, ‘accidental’,
‘responsible’ and their contraries, and apply them in assessing of punishment.”146 In other
words, while we now simply take it for granted that an offender should be punished,
because he could have acted otherwise; the history of punishment reveals that originally
this had not been the consideration behind it. Rather, punishment was originally designed
to inflict pain in revenge for an injury caused to one physically, materially or even for an
142 Ibid , The Antichrist, Sec 14
143 Ibid
144 Nietzsche, Twilight of Idols, Sec 7
145 Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, Essay II, Sec 2
146 Ibid
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injury caused to one’s pride or beliefs. Consequently every injury had its “equivalent
price”, which had to be agreed upon through a moral system, hence the impediment of
resolving human conflict. Nietzsche observes that all moral systems are dependent upon
their conception of responsibility, duty, and conscience, having been stabilised
throughout human history, hence, “watered thoroughly and for a long time with blood,”
even Kant’s categorical imperative, to Nietzsche “stinks of cruelty”. 147
Nietzsche notes that the concept of responsibility was advanced through the
development of trade, in buying and selling goods and labour, in other words, in the
relationship between the “creditor and owner”. Foucault also sheds lights on this concept,
in his book The Order of Things; he writes, “to say that a thing has a value is to say that it
is, or we esteem it, good for some use.”148 Nietzsche calls this the “oldest form of human
sagacity,” an intelligence that was formed as man learned “to set prices, to measure
values, to think up equivalencies, to exchange things — that preoccupied man’s very first
thinking to such a degree that, in a certain sense, it is what thinking itself is.”149 This was
also the beginning of man’s development of sense of pride and the feeling of the self;
Thus he refers to them as “the most rudimentary forms of personal legal rights the
budding feeling of exchange, contract, guilt, law, duty, and compensation was instead
first transferred to the crudest and earliest social structures (in their relationships with
similar social structures), along with the habit of comparing power with power, of
measuring, of calculating…”150 In generalising his experience of the trade, humans
147 Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, Essay II, Sec 6
148 Foucault, Order of things, (Routledge 2001) p. 213
149 Ibid
150 Ibid sec. 8
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reached at the conclusion that “everything has its price, all can be paid for”151. The ideas
of “ought” and “duty” originally formed the relationship between the creditor and the
owner; then they were moralised throughout the history. This was while conscience was
also interwoven with the idea of God as the ultimate creditor.
In his revaluation of moral values Nietzsche does not seek to impose
responsibility on humans, nor does he urge them to “cultivate” moral feelings in
themselves, in a Kantian fashion. In his mind such a view is an indication that “man has
not dared to credit himself with all his strong and surprising impulses – he has conceived
them as ‘passive’, as ‘suffered’ as things imposed upon him: religion is the product of a
doubt concerning the unity of the person, an alteration of the personality: in so far as
everything great and strong in man has been conceived as superhuman and external, man
has belittled himself – he has separated the two sides of himself, one very paltry and
weak, one very strong and astonishing, into two spheres, and called the former ‘man’, the
latter ‘God’.”152 Nietzsche’s formula as an alternative to the conventional understanding
of free will and responsibility is to awaken the individuals to the realisation of their own
worth and potential as a dynamic fraction of existence, as part of a dynamic process of
co-evolution, and as a unity in plurality. The individual, in this picture, is not subject to
the will of a higher power; he is not created by God; neither is he punished, nor
rewarded, for his deed, rendering the very conception of virtue, futile; since for Nietzsche
“one is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole.”153
151 Ibid
152 Nietzsche, The will to Power (Random House USA) 1997 sec.136
153 Ibid Twilight of idols, sec. 8
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It seems as though Nietzsche suggests that nature as a whole, and human beings as
fractions of its dynamism, have evolved because of a necessity, because it could not have
been otherwise, hence dispensing with all judgement. Thus for him, “there exists nothing
which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge,
measure, compare, condemn the whole…but nothing exists apart from the whole! – That
no one is any longer made accountable, that the kind of being manifested cannot be
traced back to a causa prima, that the world is a unity neither as sensorium nor as ‘spirit’,
this alone is the great liberation – the innocence of becoming resorted;” hence
Nietzsche’s assertion that “the concept ‘God’ has hitherto been the greatest objection to
existence.”154 In this manner by denying the cause, the purpose, the notion of
accountability, and free will, he embraces an even greater freedom; a freedom that is also
free from judgement. One may argue that Nietzsche’s rejection of the free will is the
most profound notion in seeking to generate a criterion for human contentment; beyond
judgement and in congruence with the true nature of existence as change and flux. Unlike
the Kantian categorical imperative, which sought to pose prescriptive a priori principles
for moral judgement, the Nietzschean paradigm eradicates the need for morality and the
quest for virtue. Kant’s confusion over the incongruity between human contentment and
the changing condition of human life was, indeed, a valid concern, seeing that to impose
a static moral system on organisms, whose natural inclination was one of evolution and
advancement, was a futile attempt.
154 Ibid
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Normative aspects of morality:
The prescriptive and the normative aspects of morality are not exactly separable.
Although, for Nietzsche, while the former was a subject of ridicule; the latter gravely
worried him as a deterioration even destruction of mankind. In his opposition of the
normative aspect of morality, Nietzsche is concerned with its validation, even
glorification of the concept of “norm”. To Nietzsche, such a mode of value setting in the
society constraints human progression, seeing that it undermines the worth of the higher
men and leads to the subsistence of the average individual.
To appreciate Nietzsche’s concern one must recognise the correlation between the
idea of “norm” and the conception “equality”, which finds its roots in the history of
“trade”. A passage from Foucault may shed light on this, as he notes that the objective of
trade, throughout history, has been the exchange of “value for value in accordance with
the greatest possible equality. ‘In order to receive much, one must give much; and in
order to give much, one must receive much.’ That is the whole art of trade. Trade by its
very nature exchanges together only things of equal value.”155 This observation bears
extremely important implications that not only highlight the original formation of the
normative aspect of morality but also bears a hidden proposal in how its eradication may
eventually give rise to the transformation of the morality, hence Nietzsche’s
preoccupation with exposing the veiled flows of normative ideals. Brian Leiter points out,
in this regard: it is often assumed “that Nietzsche objects to morality because of its claim
of universality. Yet Nietzsche never objects to the universality of moral demands, per se,
155 Ibid Foucault, Order of things, p. 206
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as an intrinsically bad feature of MPS (morality in the pejorative sense); rather he finds
universality objectable because he holds that ‘the demand of one morality for all’ is
detrimental to the higher man.”156 Nietzsche’s rejection of the concept of norm stems
from the observation that morality is based on values; values are rooted in trade; and
trade demands equality in exchange; thus morality demands equality. Nietzsche’s concern
is that, in this picture those individuals who do not meet the criteria of the norm due to
their exceptional qualities may become marginalised and even go extinct. Thus in a
naturalistic vein, one may note that, in a society that operates based on normative values
the process of natural selection, be it in survival of genes or ideas (the so called memes),
the extraordinary individuals will have less chance of endurance, as their creativity and
contribution may be undermined. Furthermore, such a society breeds greater number of
individuals, who adhere to the established norms, hence containing the rise of chaos and
bringing about a state of order. This, indeed, was Kant’s dream as it was in such a society
that man would presumably come closest to confining the change and flux as the
unavoidable condition of life. For Nietzsche however such a social order verges upon its
own demise, seeing his celebration of chaos as an agent of procreating the overman, thus
his assertion that, “one must have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star.”157
156 Brian Leiter. Nietzsche and the morality ethics, (Routledge2002) p. 233
157 Ibid . Thus Spoke Zarathustra
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Nietzsche’s political philosophy
Nietzsche’s thoughts have, by and large, remained exempt from entering the
discipline of political theory. This concluding section attempts to draw attention to the
causes of his exclusion. Furthermore it is hoped to advocate the significance of
Nietzsche’s philosophy for this arena, in particular with respect to the 21st century
politics of a globalising society.
Nietzsche’s exemption from entering the canon of political thinkers is perhaps due
to one mains reason, namely lack of a clear conception of an “ideal” form of society in
his philosophy. All philosophers have hitherto shaped their moral and political philosophy
in such a way to offer an identifiable form of social structure, as the ideal model. From
communitarianism, to cosmopolitanism; be it in a realistic or a liberalistic vein; all of
these approaches contain a preconception of an ideal form of society, with presumed set
of values and principles. Furthermore, one may note that, what gives shape to these ideal
social structures, is the principles that drive their formation.
However, such clear ideals seem to be absent in Nietzsche’s philosophy.
Moreover, as a self acclaimed “amoral” and an “atheist”, many readily dismiss him from
entering the canon of political thinkers to be studied. This is, also, partly, due to
continued influence of religious and metaphysical thinkers within the sphere of political
philosophy. For example, the conception of cosmopolitan ideals, and the republican form
of governance, which has been the predominant mode of 20 century politics in the west is
greatly influenced by Kant, whose metaphysical views we discussed earlier.
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Conversely, Nietzsche’s philosophy, and in particular his views on the concept of
inequality; and his celebration of the idea of competition in humans’ social interactions
have, at times, been gravely misread and misinterpreted as a portrayal of fascism; hence
having been historically associated with the Nazi movement. In addition, Nietzsche’s
view of chaos as the desired state of the society and his notion of the overman as the
stature of human evolution, appear to cast even more ambiguity on his conception of an
“ideal” form of social structure, as portrayal of a formless “form”. With that in mind, the
following paragraphs aim to offer clarification on some of these Nietzschean concepts.
Conception of inequality:
One may note that in marking the inequality of mankind, what Nietzsche truly
celebrates is the diversity of humans’ aptitude, as opposed to advocating a fascistic view
of a higher race, class, or gender. In a society that operates in this fashion, individuals
find the opportunity to self-expression in a free challenge, open to all; whereby, those
who are most efficient thrive. However, such understanding of inequality may pose a
challenge on the presumptions of normative morality; since, ironically, it leads to a state
of equality for true competition of individuals and ideas with respect to one another. To
further clarify this, it is worth noting that in the normative model of morality, the ideal of
equality of mankind is portrayed as the equality of all before a higher power, thus
everyone is responsive to a transcendental being that sets the benchmark of human
limitations. All are free and equal, in so far as their action is judged with respect to this
underlying metaphysical presumption. In this view equality is bestowed upon humans, so
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that they can be equally judged, in case of their noncompliance with the normative
values. For Nietzsche, however, there are no set values based on the presumption of
humans’ equality. Rather he encourages the individuals to take up new challenges in
overcoming the self and the others; beyond the boundaries of human experience. Such
attitude on Nietzsche’s part, however, should not be mistaken for persuasion of
resentment; nor is he an advocate of an hierarchic model of society. The traditional
conception of hierarchy stems from a religious attitude; whereby, not only hierarchy is
present between the “apparent” and the “real” world, hence between God and man; but
the notion also gives way to a hierarchic portrayal of human society, supposedly
bestowed upon a number of fortunate individuals from above.
Derrida’s clarification of the idea of “inequality” brings Nietzsche’s conception of
hierarchy in a new light. Derrida provides his account as a response to Heidegger’s
misreading of Nietzsche in a metaphysical vein. He notes that in consideration of
Umdrehung, Heidegger emphasises the very strongest of torsions, (as) that in which the
opposition, itself has been submitted to reversal, and is suppressed. Thus Heidegger’s
concern that, “as the story goes, ‘with the true world we have also abolished the apparent
one...’” For Derrida, however, Nietzsche’s innovation of hierarchy “does not consist in a
renewal of the hierarchy or the substance of values, but rather in a transformation of the
very value of hierarchy itself”.158
In challenging a hierarchic portrayal of the human society, Nietzsche seeks to
reveal its repercussions, in generating moral values driven from a state of resentment. He,
therefore, notes that in a traditional hierarchy driven society values originate from the
158Jacques Derrida Nietzsche’s Style,(University of Chicago Press 1979) p.79
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opposition of a master and slave mentality, whereby, “the revolt of the slaves, in morals,
begins in the very principle of resentment becoming creative and giving birth to values –
a resentment experienced by creatures who, deprived as they are of the proper outlet of
action, are forced to find their compensation in an imaginary revenge.”159 In a sense the
moral system invented by the noble is a result of their gleeful affirmation of themselves.
The slave morality, however, is a nay saying to all that is other to themselves. While the
noble morality is content in itself the slave morality, “requires objective stimuli to be
capable of action at all.”160 At the same time Nietzsche challenges the weak for
demanding that the strong should not express themselves; thus remarking that, “to require
of strength that it should not express itself as strength; that it should not be a wish to
overpower, a wish to overthrow, a wish to become master, a thirst for enemies and
antagonism and triumphs, is just as absurd as to require of weakness that it should
express itself as strength.”161
It has to be noted that in reproaching the values driven from slave morality,
Nietzsche does not seek to glorify those driven from the master and the noble; seeing that
for Nietzsche the very structure of a society that operates based on this traditional model
of hierarchy is degradation of humanity. However, in stating these accounts Nietzsche
attempts to reveal that the weak and the oppressed are themselves contributors to their
own state and that without one, the other would not reign. Therefore, to transform a moral
system that has originated from a master and slave mentality, one may not hope to
triumph by merely attacking the moral principle; rather it is the structure of the human
159 Ibid sec. 10
160 Ibid
161 Ibid sec. 13
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society that requires transformation. One may argue that based on Nietzsche’s conception
of the master and slave morality, all forms of social structures that human civilisation has
hitherto undergone, share the principles of such mentality to various degrees. From the
tyrannical model of kingdoms that reigned for millennia, to the later progression of
societies into the monarchic form of governance, and even in the Kantian ideal of
republicanism, one notes the presence of master and slave morality to some degree. For
one thing in all of these models, even in the cosmopolitan society of the 20th century, the
individuals are treated as “subjects” and the governing bodies, despite having undergone
transformation in their shape, still maintain the ability to subdue their citizens, at least in
principle, and to varying degrees. Thus, one may argue that, Nietzsche’s exemption from
entering the canon of political philosophers is due to the fact that the mode of society that
he advocates requires a complete transformation of our social structure. The model of
social structure that Nietzsche advocates is based on the notion of the overman and
affirmation of chaos. The overman is a human being who has become “power that no
longer needs proving”, hence he himself is the criterion of human contentment and the
utmost triumph of mankind.
To reach such a degree of advancement the human civilisation has to realise a new
state of harmony as an integrated whole; while also celebrating their innermost diversity.
However, for Nietzsche, as opposed to Kant, such harmony does not come merely as a
result of binding contracts and treaties between nations. While that course of action may
bring about perpetual peace; for human civilisation to reach its true potential, a new kind
of awareness has to materialise on the level of the individual. In this new perspective,
diversity leads to competition, progression, and change in the society, while the concept
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of “competition” does not equate “opposition”. For Nietzsche, the diversity of the power
quanta is to be celebrated, and affirmed; and he condemns the “dialectic” that expresses
every combination of reactive forces as opposition. Hence as Deleuze notes, “opposition
substituted for difference is also the triumph of the reactive forces that find their
corresponding principle in the will to nothingness”162. For Deleuze, it is Nietzsche’s task
to set up “a new image of thought, freeing thought from the burdens, which are crushing
it”. Thus, he notes that it is “no exaggeration to say that the whole of Nietzsche’s
philosophy is ‘in its polemical sense’, an attack on three ideas of, ‘a power of negative as
a theoretical principle manifested in opposition and contradiction; the idea that suffering
and sadness have value; the valorisation of the ‘sad passion’, as a practical principle
manifested in splitting and tearing apart; the idea of positivity as theoretical and practical
product of negation itself.”163 One may observe that various ideological systems have
often tried to “resolve” this hurdle, by merely producing a phantom of affirmation. Yet
true affirmation does not seek to equalise the power quanta; rather it celebrates their
inequality and difference and steers clear of judgement.
As Deluse puts it, “it is in this element of difference that affirmation manifests
and develops itself as creative. The will to power is the principle of multiple affirmations:
the donor principle or bestowing virtue”164. With this Nietzschean outlook, one celebrates
multiplicity, becoming, chance and probability as indispensable attributes of nature;
hence, “the player only loses because he does not affirm strongly enough, as he
introduces the negative into chance; and opposition into becoming and multiplicity”. In
162 Ibid Deleuze, p. 125
163Ibid p. 195
164 Ibid
116
other words, it is the player’s subliminal will to nothingness and self destruction that
leads to his/her defeat. “The true dice throw necessarily produces the winning number,
which reproduces the dice throw; (as) we affirm chance and the necessity of chance;
becoming and the being of becoming; multiplicity and the unity of multiplicity.” 165
Hitherto, the predominant mode of human society has not been built on an
affirmative attitude; but, rather, on negation and resistance towards change and becoming.
Even though negation might appear to be a form of will to power, it really is only one
aspect, or as Delueze puts it, “one face of the will to power”; it is “the face by which it is
known to us; in so far as, knowledge itself is the expression of reactive forces.”166 To
understand and adopt the reactive force is naturally easier for humans, than to create out
of affirmation; hence, man’s evolutionary history of nihilism. The reason for this is that
reactive forces act as exterior stimuli, and are often an expression of one’s frustration
with one’s life conditions. In contrast, to create from affirmation, requires proactive spur
of inner stimuli.
Nietzsche’s optimistic affirmative outlook on life anticipates an end point to
human interaction from negation. His condemnation of morality is, therefore, a
condemnation of resentment as the driving force of human interaction. Even the very
conception of virtue, in such a system is essentially a reactive mode that operates to
please a self-invented delusional conception of a higher power; thus, Nietzsche’s disdain
for virtue, seeing that it is a concept, human all too human, after all. In his view men will
have overcome themselves, when they no longer seek reward for virtue, nor would they
165 Ibid
166 Ibid
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regard virtue as its own reward. For Deleuze, this is the point of “transmutation” or
“trans-valuation” of all values. It is at this point where negation loses command as a
reactive force and becomes proactive; since the only the mode of being is, now,
affirming. The negativity “as the negativity of the positive”, is what Deleuze signifies as
Nietzsche’s “anti-dialectic discovery”. That is to say that the will to power “both
transforms the negative and reproduces affirmation.”167
Perspectivism and the condition of chaos
Nietzsche’s affirmative philosophy strives for a breakthrough, whereby humans as
species may gain strength and stability through continued endurance of the highest man.
The highest man he regards as having a Dionysian attitude towards life; thus the
propensity of human potential is unlimited; seeing that the Dionysian man is
characterised by chaos. That Nietzsche refers to the highest man as the overman indicates
that he does not see him as an endpoint, where human progression terminates. Rather the
overman is a dynamic character in constant self-overcoming; hence being devoid of a
pre-established impression of form.
In this picture, given the lack of a fixed perception of form in characterising the
society and its individual components, definition of the self appears to collapse; as
boundaries between the self and the others wither. This new image of the self also
transfigures the conception of responsibility and duty, which signifies a momentous
departure from the Kantian view of moral obligation. It leads to a paradigm, more
167 Ibid
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profound than responsibility and duty. Rather it signifies a necessity. An analogy that
might help in appreciating this is to see man’s life as compared to a cell in the body; the
cells and the body, as a united whole, are manifestations of one and the same reality. The
cells are embedded in the body and the body has no meaning without the cells that it
embodies. One cannot say that cells create the body nor does the body create the cells.
An intrinsic entanglement that leads to the co-evolution and dynamism of a unit of
existence is, in fact, not only a unity in plurality, but it is also in constant transformation.
In a way one may observe that every unit of existence is a dynamic system, whose parts
are continually exchanged, replaced and recycled, in association of its inner elements and
in their correlation with the outside world. In these processes, as the inside elements
decay and those from the outside are integrated and replace them, the structure and the
identity of a system, or organism, appears to remain the same; thus the intrinsic
uncertainty as to where the boundaries between one and the others lie. Consequently, as
the clear conception of boundaries between the inside and the outside dissolve, the most
reliable attitude that one may adopt in human relationship appears to be one of mutual
engagement based on understanding of reality in relative terms. The society of overman
is a place of proactive involvement of citizens in their own affairs. However, this also
requires maximising one’s relative knowledge of one’s local and global conditions, in
order to determine the best possible choices in every occasion.
Proactive creators do not fool themselves into believing in the reality of “things in
themselves” or in supernatural powers. They realise that the conditions of life are one of
probability in relative association of all natural phenomena and to succeed they must
persistent in throwing the dice, not only by their actions but also by thinking. For
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Nietzsche, to think is throw out dice, in the direction of a new creation, be it positive or
negative. Hence a negative thought even if projected unconsciously may contribute to
formation one’s reality. However, it has to be noted that Nietzsche does not state this in
any miraculous or mysterious sense; rather he draws attention to the idea that our
thoughts may subconsciously affect our actions and decisions, as well as our perception
of realty. The axioms of logic are, therefore, “simply a means by which we create reality,
including the concept of reality itself”168 As Pearson puts it, what should interest us most,
according to Nietzsche, “is not whether our interpretations of the world are ‘true’ or
‘false’ (this we can never absolutely know), but whether they cultivate the will to power,”
in the direction of strength or weakness.169 As such our analysis of these, “should not
focus on their putative ‘truth-claims’, but on the question of whether they reflect rich,
strong, and abundant forms of life, or weak, exhausted, and degenerating ones.” This,
according to Pearson is a radical perspectivism that forms a standpoint “beyond good and
evil”.170
Nietzsche seeks to alert us to the bias of metaphysical presumptions that we carry
even in the form by which we question the nature of reality. As Patrick Hayden notes, for
Nietzsche, the very creation of reality begins right from the moment as we pose the
question, “what is...”; seeing that the question “seeks to identify, that which ‘is,’ namely
essence in the traditional metaphysical sense.” However according to Hayden, the
Nietzschean, empirical and pluralist mindset would pose the question, “which one is...?”
168 Ibid, The Will to Power, 516
169 Keith Ansell Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker (Cambridge University Press
2008), p. 17
170 Ibid
120
For example, “which one is beautiful?” The former question as Hayden notes, gives us
the possibility of only one answer, “that is itself, invariable, universal and beyond
experience: ‘Beauty ‘is’ Beauty,’ a self-identical essence underlying appearance. The
latter question,” however, “has many different and particular answers, all ushered in by
rich diversity of existence: ‘This painting is beautiful,’ ‘This sunset is beautiful,’ ‘this
face is beautiful”171. With such a view in mind reality itself remains subject to the
Dionysian state of flux and dynamism “the specific relationship or composition of forces,
which in their inter-relationship, express the one that is beautiful (or just) at some
particular time and place.”172
Therefore it seems impossible that one may interpret, observe and measure
phenomena, without affecting them. Subsequently, one may also argue that, in interacting
with phenomena, we affect our own perception of them; which may not always
necessarily account for having actually affected the object of observation. This essential
problem of measurement, interpretation, and observation is a point that comes to focus in
a non-classical world-view, in modern science; undermining the Platonic conception of
reality as a fixed conception, and the Kantian notion of the thing in itself. For Gianni
Vattimo, “even the interpreting subject is therefore caught in the game of his
interpretation, which is itself only a perspectival ‘positioning’ of the Will to Power.”173
To an adherer of a classical world-view, such impressions might seem absurd; but
enquiry into the laws of nature reveals evidence of indistinct peripheries between subjects
and objects and the observer and the observed. Indeed here is where one may detect
171 Ibid Hayden p. 51
172 Ibid
173 Ibid p. 125
121
profound disparities between thoughts of Nietzsche and Kant. Appalled by the apparent
ambiguities of conditions of existence, Kant attempted to refute those in a metaphysical
vein. Nietzsche, however, affirmed the contradictions and ambiguities of nature and
applied a perspectival view in engaging with them; rendering uncalled for, the traditional
conception of moral judgement based on fixed ideas of good and evil. Therefore, as
Pearson notes, “In response to Kant’s epistemological inquiry ‘how are synthetic a priori
judgements possible? Nietzsche asks the psychological question, why is it necessary for
us to believe in such a judgement?”174 To affirm or deny one and the same thing
Nietzsche thinks to be an impossible task. For him, this is not about an expression of
necessity, but one of inability, hence it is a subjective empirical law.
Ultimately, Nietzsche affirms contradiction and relativity as the fundamental state
of nature; remarking that “If according to Aristotle, the law of contradiction is the most
certain of all principles; if it is the ultimate and most basic, upon which every
demonstrative proof rests, if the principle of every axiom lies in it; then one should
consider all the more rigorously what presuppositions already lie at the bottom of it.
Either it asserts something about actuality, about being, as if one already knew this from
another source; that is, as if opposite attributes could not be ascribed to it. Or the
proposition means: opposite attributes should not be ascribed to it. In that case, logic
would be an imperative, not to know the true, but to posit and arrange a world that shall
be called true by us.”175
174 Ibid, Pearson p. 16
175 Ibid, The will to power 516
122
Conclusion
This thesis has been an attempt at a comparative study of Nietzsche and Kant’s
philosophy, in order to reveal the underlying world-view that shaped their moral and
political thought. In conclusion we draw attention to the implications of these two
philosophers’ works for political theory. One may note that, while Kant’s philosophy has
greatly influenced the foundations of cosmopolitanism in 20th century Western political
thought; a Nietzschean model best suits the political dynamics of 21st century and the
process of globalisation. This proposal is based upon the contention that dynamics of
globalisation fundamentally differs from all other forms of social structures in the history
of human civilisation, in that this new phase of human evolution is a more individually
centred process. It is precisely the role of the individual in the globalising society of 21st
century that places Nietzsche as the most suitable candidate for study in search of a new
paradigm for our era.
The most fundamental aspect that leads to divergence of a Nietzschean social
structure from the Kantian cosmopolitan ideal is the role of the individual. Nietzsche’s
portrayal of the overman, as that which is other, both, to God and man, creates a new
space for the conception of the individual in the society, given that if the overman is not
“man” then neither is he subject to the will of God. At the same time Nietzsche
characterises, the society of overman with the notion of chaos; yet it has to be noted that
the conception of chaos does not equate that of anarchy. The overman, while being other
to man, is also other to God, which signifies his lack of absolute autonomy. The
prevalence of anarchy would have been perceivable in the Nietzschean model, had he
attempted to describe the overman as having absolute power. However this has not been
123
Nietzsche’s intention. Rather one must appreciate the conceptions of chaos and the
overman in a new light, as that which has not hitherto existed and as that which may be
perceived in a perspectival vein. Nevertheless, it is possible to gain a relative
understanding of the features a society that operates in a chaotic manner. Although chaos
is by definition a depiction of “dis-order”, one may still refer to a society characterised by
chaos, as having a structure; seeing that the term dis-order, does not denote a conception
of anti-order. Instead a chaotic society may be perceived as a multiplicity of interrelated
component, whose function may be understood in terms of emergence, rather than as
unequivocal and strictly measurable causal relationships. Thus a society composed of
chaotic states may be understood as an emergent complex system of interrelated
elements, of which the individual is an indispensible one, as an active role player, and not
as a subject. The most important aspect of chaos characterising a social structure denotes
a new conception of sovereignty, free will, and the self. As such its integration invariably,
calls for a transformation of moral judgement.
The new portrayal of sovereignty, free will and the self corresponds to a
Dionysian character, with the suppleness of a child who lacks a clear and sophisticated
sense of identity and distinctiveness. Zarathustra’s veneration of the “child” as the
ultimate phase of human transformation, once the metaphoric image of a camel and a lion
has been presented as the earlier phases of the metamorphosis, denotes the beginning of
an end for the overman. The child possesses the Dionysian qualities needed for human
transformation and yet it carries the Apollonian dream interpreter within itself. The
Dionysian individuals as proactive co-creators of their reality walk on the edge of their
Apollonian form, yet never fully give in to the solidity of a limiting sense of “self”. In a
124
Dionysian representation of chaos every small element of the society can potentially have
a large impact by instigating the emergence of a constructive or a destructive state.
Therefore, the ruling bodies may no longer treat the individuals as subject, whose
threshold of freedom and creativity they can strictly determine. Rather, a chaotic society
operates through open and unconstrained communication of all.
One may note profound differences between the Nietzschean model in the above
picture and the Kantian republican ideal, which has shaped our current understanding of
democracy in a cosmopolitan sense. In a cosmopolitan society the individuals are viewed
with respect to their distinct identities, whereby their interrelation is, also, ultimately
weighed in terms of their conformity to a hierarchy of higher powers – the state, the
international organisations, and ultimately God. As such, this is a society based on
judgement of “the good”, in a hierarchic fashion, with an a priori conception of the good;
hence a republican or democratic society represents a meritocratic culture, compelled by
“virtue”, as its driving principle.
The value of “virtue” in a meritocratic society is intrinsically correlated with the
delineation of the self and the individual sovereignty. In his book on Nietzsche and the
Problem of Sovereignty, Richard White notes that sovereignty, “in its Christian and
Kantian formulations – is very much a relationship that the self has to itself. It is a matter
of conforming the self to its higher rational nature or incorporating the will of God as if it
were one’s own.”176 He further compares this notion with a Nietzschean picture, based on
a materialistic and naturalistic outlook, where the individual’s sovereignty involves a
relationship with the cosmos and all that the individual would perceive as the other.
176. Richard J White, Nietzsche and the Problem of Sovereignty, (University of Illinois Press 1997) p. 21
125
However, for White, the Nietzschean conception of the other is, “Not as something ‘out
there,’ to be used and appropriated or organised in terms of the categories of the self, but
as the Dionysian order of ‘life’ that supports and subtends the individual, who belongs to
it completely.” Hence White observes that “Nietzsche’s insistence upon materialism and
remaining faithful to the earth reflects his concern to think about the individual, not in
opposition to the world, but as an integral aspect of the world and as something
embedded within it.”177
In incorporating this new image of the self one also does away with the
conception of free will hence embracing a life beyond judgement. Consequently,
adopting an attitude free from judgement, “beyond good and evil”, renders the value of
“virtue” as the driving principle of human society to be superfluous. As opposed to the
Kantian model of a cosmopolitan society, whose republican ideals are formed around the
value of virtue; Nietzsche’s Dionysian society characterised by chaos, is driven be
freedom, as human relationship is not a contract between the citizens or among them and
“God”. Therefore, in the absence of punishment and reward, individuals in a chaotic
system operate from conscious understanding of their autonomous position and their
potential to co-create their lives in interrelation with the rest of the society.
Ultimately, it has to be noted that, while this thesis has primarily focused on
redefining the role of the individual in a Nietzschean conception of human society, this
new portrayal of the individual has further implications for the role of governing bodies
and international organisations. Given that the individuals are indeed the building blocks
of the state and the international community, collapse of the notion of self and the
177 Ibid
126
deconstruction of individual sovereignty invariably impinges on the conception of
sovereignty of the nation state as well as revisiting the perimeters that determine the
extent of international organization’s mandate in our increasingly interconnected world.
This may offer the promise of a more appropriate understanding of the dynamics of world
politics in the globalising society of 21st century; given that thanks to the radical
development of new means of communication the individuals have now found the
potential to communicate and self organise in such a manner that could undermine and
transform the degree of authority that the states and international organisations previously
enjoyed. Although the discussion of such further inferences has not been dealt with due
to limitations of this research, it is hoped that the present thesis will have raised the
possibility of seeking an alternative form of social structure to the Kantian ideal of
cosmopolitan model, whereby these new challenges may be met.
127
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